The Soccer Football Movie is more of a Weird Al movie than another CGI animated sports film. When this talent is nearly everywhere in the media these days, his popularity meter going on the rise should be no surprise. Following the wild and crazy fictional biopic of the singer (my review can be read here), this tale featuring him than voicing another character is just as zany. But he alone can’t carry a film.
The story is essentially Space Jam. The premise is the same–someone wants to steal the special ability of a sports star to use elsewhere. Instead of an alien threat, we have a fellow human who is perhaps jealous of other’s stardom. Had there more of an emphasis on this theme, there’d be a story.
Instead, what’s presented is a story about four kids–O’Dang (Kieran Walton), Zana (Madison Zamor), Nautai (Tania Gunadi) and Palio (Arnie Pantoja)–getting to meet their rugby hero Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Megan Rapinoe (both doing great jobs at voicing themselves). As their encounter goes from bad to good, and they win his heart, he offers them season tickets. But when he doesn’t return to give them their reward, that’s because he’s been “kidnapped.” That’s because Al wants to be more than a king of the world, and all those songs he wrote is actually about how he wants to be a surgeon and mad scientist after all.
Despite everyone being fans of his music, no one ever truly respected him, hence his desire to be “Bad.” It’s possible for him to turn over a new leaf, but we don’t see hints towards that direction. I saw this work only because of the small hype this flick received, and finally found the time to watch it.
Honestly, I’ve seen better because I didn’t find too much of a moral fibre to keep the tale together until the climatic end where it’s Al versus Ibrahimovic. The kids have talent, but can they defeat the mutant hair that Al gave life to? Alternatively, he doesn’t even get punished for the vile plan of stealing other’s talents for his own. Thankfully, this is just a cartoon, and it’s no better than Plants versus Zombies, to which I’m sure this production also took inspiration from.
After watching The Soccer Football Movie, I had to dig through my video collection to find Underdogs. It’s a much better film to enjoy when concerning why soccer is an exciting sport to watch. With this one, I can barely eke out a yell, and even then I barely gasped or utter a whisper, since it’s easy to tell who must win to save the day.
3 Stars out of 5
The Soccer Football Movie Trailer
