Soccer Dog

I have to say that I found this movie utterly bizarre, I don't know what I was expecting but so much of this movie is just unforgivable, largely down to the script. The film's tone is all over the place, it's packed with lazy cliches and stereotypes, at times the movie is confusing, at other times it's just pure nonsense. The main father character is just not interesting, nor is it any fun watching him at his work. The jokes are badly delivered and the plot is just impossible to follow as we have little to no idea what it's about. I really was baffled by this. The narration is also a sign that the film is struggling to tell its story visually.

This stinker is in mystifyingly frequent rotation on one channel here, and I've found myself watching in horror again and again. The script is like something one would come up with friends over several too many drinks, and the production values match admirably.

It's meant to be a children's movie, but features a grotesque (and poorly explained) kidnapping scene; the star dog has a lack of star quality equaled only by the other actors; and it in general has the look of being filmed in someone's backyard (the climactic soccer game features no more than three dozen extras sadly cheering in the background).

It even all wraps up with a budget-ran-out voice-over sequence when the story, to one's relief, simply stops. The high-raters here must be either the producers - or the majority of the extras from the soccer game!

A blatant rip-off of "Air Bud", this movie is REALLY about parents worrying too much about parenting. All the foibles of the characters (eg; adult coaches who dont know the game) are taken to the extreme- so much so that they are totally unbelievable, not funny.

There is no semblance of reality here, folks and you'll not develop sympathy for ANY of the characters.

The best thing about the movie is the good looking kits (uniforms) of the opposing team in the first game the dog plays. Perhaps chosen because the setting is supposedly near Arlington Heights, IL, the home of the Columbus Crew's franchise player, Brian McBride.

THE worst movie I've ever seen, and I've seen allot. Acting is horrible, plot is awful, idea is terrible, and no research was done what's so ever! Ok, I admit, `Air Bud' was a pretty good movie, but not `Soccer Dog'. This "dog" is smaller than my cat! How can he possibly play soccer? Even for 10 years old kids it won't be a problem to kick the ball hard enough to brake the stupid dog in half! It's horrible, don't watch this movie.

This near-masterpiece contains some of the most intense football-scenes ever filmed. Backed up by some bone-breaking cinematography, the skills displayed by the actors, and certainly the dog itself, are right up there with the stuff Stallone gave us in "Victory" (1981). There are some pretty hard shots in this movie, if you take my meaning.

The humour... Well, it's lovely. I'll admit that the razor-sharp dialogue caught me off-guard at a couple of occasions, and that's what this movie is all about: Cutting the edge on as many levels as possible.

"He's fast, and he can score goals."