Wow, where does one even begin with a movie like "Goal! The Dream Begins?" The movie looks good from the trailers: A young Mexican immigrant from Los Angeles gets his big break and chases a dream to play professional soccer in Europe. The beginning of the movie even starts out pretty cute with shots of him playing soccer in real L.A. locations, like MacArthur Park and East L.A. College. However, once the main character, Santiago Munez, starts talking, the movie goes downhill.
"Goal!" suffers from every cheesy sports movie clich? possible. The disapproving father figure, the one dream, the helpful mother, the cool cameos of famous sports figures, the deferrence of the dream, the pep talk from the girlfriend, the deferrence of the dream again, the chance event, and of course the cheesy ending where the protagonist screams, "YEAH!" and the camera freezes the motion as the movie ends. This movie has it all. It even has the obligatory, "I don't want your life!" scene between the father and son, just like the one in"Varsity Blues."
The problems with the movie begin with the inaccurate depiction of how the Munez family came to the U.S. From there it just gets worse, as some of the translations for the Spanish spoken are off, leading the viewer to ask, "Did he just call him a stupid ball?" Even worse, some of the regional Spanish is incorrect. Los Angeles is predominately Mexican, so some viewers might find it odd that the actors are using Puerto Rican terms.
With all these problems, one would think there would be decent acting in the film, right? Wrong. The acting is actually the worst part of the movie. The lead is played by Mexican actor Kuno Baker, and since he is actually Mexican, it'd be believable that he would portray a convincing one. Instead, they could have gotten Wilmer Valderrama to play him and had better results. Baker delivers lines with a robotic drone to his voice that sounds as if he is reading the lines from a cue card.
The script of the movie doesn't help. The lines are extremely cheesy, as every 10 minutes it seems as if "the dream is over," and our hero, Santiago, is always there with the clich?d defeatist line: "I guess I should stop dreaming," to make the viewers feel bad for him. Baker tries to gain sympathy but ends up looking like a whiny baby.
The most awkward points in the movie come whenever Baker tries to display emotion. The only way he can do this is by screaming a lot. Baker's screaming is also extremely awkward for the viewers as his anger, sad, painful and happy screams all sound exactly the same; he seems extremely constipated and in dire need of roughage. This movie did not score a goal in any way possible. Instead, it just took a crap.
It is just another "sports dream" movie, but even among its peers, "Goal!" disappointed on every single level. If you want to see a great soccer/sports movie, do yourself a favor and rent "Bend It Like Beckham." Otherwise steer clear of "Goal! The Dream Begins," and every potential sequel hereafter. Stay far, far away.
