Metacritic-Rezensionen

Most sports films are also fish-out-of-water stories, and this one qualifies as both.

How much viewers care about what happens in Goal! is directly proportionate to how much they care about soccer, because decent execution aside, there's an underdog fantasy movie just like this one for every sport.

The film is capably acted and somewhat inspiring.

A slickly mounted slice of can-do nonsense.

The cast, all around, is sterling. There's only one thing they don't need to bring back for the sequels, and that's the movie's appetite for every sports cliché there ever was.

The appealing young man's tribulations are predictable, his triumph inevitable; while he gets respect, we get another Rocky-style dose of emotional uplift, cloaked in the usual game-day clichés.

Goal seems destined to be an ongoing soccer-themed soap opera, but it's one that only the game's biggest enthusiasts likely will find compelling.

Despite employing every cliché in the sports-movie handbook, Goal! The Dream Begins tells a reasonably engaging story.

As the clichés mount, Danny Cannon directs as if he's the one on trial, teasing tension out of every pass and dribble. Most irritating of all is his determination to paint British soccer as a gentleman's game, a notion United's real fans would no doubt treat with the scorn it deserves.

The trouble with Goal!, which -- horror of horrors -- is the first of a trilogy, is that it's neither a persuasive story nor a satisfying display of soccer.