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Miracle

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It’s 1980, and the U.S. Olympic hockey team is a bunch of young college players, talented but disorganized and virtually without international experience. College coach Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell), a stern disciplinarian, is hired to whip these boys into shape. And that’s exactly what he does, angering everyone involved, from the Olympic oversight committee to his players. But even if his assistant, Craig Patrick (Noah Emmerich), doubts the wisdom of what the coach is doing, he is continually amazed at the results the kids achieve through extra effort. And effort is what they will need if they hope to match up against the world’s best teams, especially the perennial champion Red Army team from the Soviet Union. As Brooks, Russell pulls off his best performance since his stirring 1979 turn as The King in “Elvis.” Director Gavin O’Connor wisely dodges the flag-waving and instead concentrates on how players such as Mike Eruzione (Patrick O’Brien Demsey) and Jim Craig (Eddie Cahill) come together as a team. That, more than anything, allows them to accomplish what the movie’s title suggests. – Dan Webster, The Spokesman-Review. (DVD, VHS; 2:15) Rated PG (mature themes).

Paycheck

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It’s not so much that John Woo does anything really wrong with this adaptation of another Philip K. Dick short story (see “Minority Report,” “Impostor,” “Total Recall,” etc.). It’s just that, aside from the standard thrills, Woo doesn’t do anything particularly special. Ben Affleck stars as a reverse engineer, a “genius” who specializes in taking things apart so that he can steal the secrets and sell them for big fees. The conceit is that when the job is done, his memory is “wiped” so that he can’t tell anyone what he has done. When he takes a job that ends up costing him three years of his life, only to find out that he has forfeited his fees and that someone is trying to have him killed, he struggles to figure out what is going on before it’s too late. Affleck is his typical stiff self, and he has little on-screen chemistry with Uma Thurman. Paul Giamatti is a bright spot, though Woo’s trademark use of a white dove feels a bit tired. – Dan Webster, The Spokesman-Review. (DVD, VHS; 1:50) Rated PG-13 (intense action violence, brief language).

Torque

Apparently aiming to do for action movies what “Scream” did for horror flicks, “Torque” is extremely aware of the conventions of its predecessors, including “The Fast and the Furious,” “2 Fast 2 Furious” and “XXX,” and it has a gratuitous good time making fun of them. But “Torque” – sort of a beer commercial within a Kid Rock video within an X Games competition – goes a step further, with fights and motorcycle chases that will simultaneously inspire awe and hysterical laughter. Martin Henderson, Ice Cube, Monet Mazur and Matt Schulze star. – Christy Lemire, Associated Press. (DVD, VHS; 1:23) Rated PG-13 (violence, sexuality, language, drug references).

You Got Served

This may look like a post-millennial “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo” – and Lord knows that’s long overdue. But it’s actually more like an extended infomercial for B2K, the recently split fab four of R&B, as written and directed by the group’s manager, Christopher B. Stokes. The boys of B2K – Omari “Omarion” Grandberry, Jarell “J-Boog” Houston, DeMario “Raz-B” Thornton and Dreux “Lil’ Fizz” Frederic – appear as members of a Los Angeles street dance crew that battles other groups for money, pride and (most importantly) bragging rights. The dancing is spectacular: a jaw-dropping combination of hip-hop moves, old-school break dancing, cheerleading pyramids and down-and-dirty trash talk. – Christy Lemire, Associated Press. (DVD, VHS; 1:33) Rated PG-13 (thematic elements, sexual references).

Now available: “Miracle,” “Paycheck,” “Torque,” “You Got Served.”

Available Tuesday: “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King,” “Welcome to Mooseport,” “Broken Lizard’s Club Dread,” “Smallville: Season 2.”