Apparently, Titans is a football movie that can make grown men cry. Joel Siegel on Good Morning America estimated that he "burst into tears at least 17 times" while watching it. "This movie is what football fans my age used to call a triple threat," Siegel commented. "Great performances, excellent script and Denzel Washington, who manages to imbue the characters he plays with a dignity and strength without showing us."

A.O. Scott in the New York Times also suggests that the film captures the essence of what stirs us most about sports. "If Remember the Titans is corny, it's unabashedly, even generously so," he writes, adding that there are some scenes that will leave you with "a lump in your throat and an overwhelming urge to cheer." Most reviewers, however, are not so moved.

To Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News, the film is nothing more than "processed schmaltz." And while the film is based on a true story, Mathews says it "feels as waxed as Madame Tussaud's Lassie." Geoff Pevere in the Toronto Star describes it this way: "Less a movie than a pep rally for good citizenship." Bob Strauss in the Los Angeles Daily News suggests the entire film can be boiled down to this formula: "Make speech. Throw ball. Make another speech. Win game. Everybody sing golden oldie. Make speech again. Repeat. End racism."

But Gary Thompson in the Philadelphia Daily News apparently anticipated the criticism of his colleagues when he wrote: "I wonder if what really rankles some people about Titans is the way it flies in the face of the pessimism, separatism, smugness that mark so many current discussions of race. In fact, beneath its MTV veneer, you may be surprised at what an improbably moving and thoughtful movie Titans turns out to be."

Source: Studio Briefing