The action on the field won't be enough to sate the most soccer-crazed viewers.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 24, 2006

The combination of button-pushing uplift, sundry sweeping helicopter shots and a bombastic score that sounds like it came on a free transfer from a Tony Scott movie proves as resistibly synthetic as the CGI-enhanced heroics on the pitch.

| Jun 24, 2006

Everything here is beyond predictable.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 9, 2006

| Original Score: D | May 20, 2006

Goal! is filled with cringe-inducing scenes we've seen before many, many times.

Full Review | May 16, 2006

... it is good and caring work, with more human detail than we expect.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 13, 2006

In the end, I can't think of a movie that matters less than Just My Luck. It's just negligible.

| May 12, 2006

Predictable Goal! The Dream Begins may not be the stuff of everyone's reveries, but the film is capably acted and somewhat inspiring.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 12, 2006

No matter where the film carries you, it always gets back to the love of the game.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 12, 2006

The best American-made sports film since Miracle.

| Original Score: 4/4 | May 12, 2006

The pro-soccer circuit is convincingly portrayed, and at its best moments the dialogue is as bright as Newcastle's skies aren't.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 12, 2006

Danny Cannon's Goal! The Dream Begins is a sports movie for people who may not care about sports but can't resist a heart-tugging underdog story.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 12, 2006

Goal! is right up there with the terrific Akeelah and the Bee (another underdog now in theaters) in the way it draws you in and keeps you rooting for its lower class but highly talented hero.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 12, 2006

There's plenty of fat to cut from Goal!, which would have been a stronger story at a lean, mean 90 minutes.

Full Review | May 12, 2006

For all its familiar ticks -- of which there are many -- Goal! works some underdog magic in taking aspiring footballer Santiago Munez from Mexico to Los Angeles and then across the big pond to Newcastle, England.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 12, 2006

Handsomely shot and with a likable lead in Kuno Becker, it also suffers from a script so outrageously generic you could buy it at Costco.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | May 12, 2006

Goal! is dippy and predictable, and it never once surprises.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 12, 2006

Still works reasonably well in spite of itself, mostly due to the damnable reliability of these clichés when they're put across with enough skill and conviction.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | May 12, 2006

But other than a flicker of something interesting in the performance of Alessandro Nivola as a hard-partying star player there is always something distant and antiseptic about it all.

Full Review | Original Score: C | May 12, 2006

Goal! The Dream Begins follows a young Mexican soccer whiz from Los Angeles to England and a tryout with Newcastle United.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | May 11, 2006