What allows We Are Marshall to stand above many of the other 2006 sports movies is both the undeniable power of the story itself and the strong ensemble McG gathered to tell it.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2007

| Original Score: 2/6 | Feb 3, 2007

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 30, 2006

| Original Score: C- | Dec 30, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Dec 30, 2006

Unlike a lot of sports movies, it doesn't end with a championship or a great upset over a powerhouse. The real victory on the Marshall campus was in fielding a team that honored and respected the legacy of the 1970 team.

Full Review | Dec 26, 2006

We Are Marshall isn't about grief or loss, but how these things can be overcome. It's uplifting, but shallow.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Dec 22, 2006

This is a movie that sits there, doing nothing, leaving an audience waiting and wondering why they are supposed to care or get emotionally involved, which is really too bad because there is a great story to be told here.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 22, 2006

This was undeniably a horrific event for the victims' families friends, colleagues as well as for the entire community. But the movie seems to almost exploit this tragedy so it can make audiences weep, and ultimately, cheer.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Dec 22, 2006

What's missing is any kind of insight into the lives of the dead players or the members of the Young Thundering Herd who rise up to replace them.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 22, 2006

A series of montage and anecdotal vignettes follows as they recruit a whole new team, learn lessons from the catastrophe, lose and then win, with plenty of sentimentality sprinkled over the whole thing.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 22, 2006

We Are Marshall is a bit of a shame, because the subject matter could have been something special in the hands of stronger filmmakers.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Dec 22, 2006

We Are Marshall is the kind of crassly formulaic movie in which everything hinges on a single play in the final seconds of a big football game.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Dec 22, 2006

A better film would have acknowledged the limits of sport and discovered that when you're in mourning all you can do is distract yourself, either by hard work (on the part of the surviving teammates) or meaningless entertainment (the fans).

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 22, 2006

It looks like every inspirational sports movie we've seen in the last five years.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 22, 2006

An entirely serviceable night out for buddies looking to locate hidden feelings.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 22, 2006

As sincerely felt as it may be, We Are Marshall still comes off feeling contrived and superficial.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 22, 2006

Too bad the film doesn't sustain the mix of sorrow and hope the story requires.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Dec 22, 2006

Matthew McConaughey injects some much needed life as the oddball coach who sets out to rebuild the football squad, and David Strathairn, Ian McShane, and Robert Patrick do their best with sketchy characters and artless dialogue.

| Dec 22, 2006

This is the rare football drama (Friday Night Lights is another) that gives you a sense of what football means to a town.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 22, 2006