| Original Score: B | Feb 18, 2012

Great game, bad storytelling. Soccer buffs only.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 18, 2010

the narrative and dialogue club us over the head in an effort to make 21st-century viewers understand why the victory of America's team over England was of such monumental importance.

| Mar 1, 2007

| Original Score: C | Oct 11, 2006

A treat for soccer fans who have yet to see their favorite game given its due on the big screen. This won't be a classic soccer movie, but it's a start.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 28, 2006

A sentimental, creaky, underwritten, overloaded picture that fails as character study, period film, sports movie and heart-stirrer.

Full Review | Jun 3, 2005

Enough enthusiasm, authenticity, and spirited soccer play to offset the missing ingredients.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 11, 2005

The Game of Their Lives takes a standard inspirational sports movie structure.

| May 9, 2005

Snooze.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Apr 28, 2005

Director David Anspaugh has a skilled touch, but there's just not that much drama to film. This is a very competent, very predictable sports film.

Full Review | Apr 25, 2005

...disappointingly mediocre...

| Apr 22, 2005

...lacks even a penalty kick's worth of tension and is paradoxically inert for a movie about guys running up and down the pitch for the glory of the U.S.

Full Review | Apr 22, 2005

Angelo Pizzo's screenplay is rife with the expected sports and gamesmanship cliches, and he and Anspaugh take forever just to get to the game action, which is the only really worthwhile material.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 22, 2005

These guys give a sport that is virtually nameless in the movies a good name in this one.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 22, 2005

...this soccer tale is about as exciting to watch as a scoreless match between opponents so defense-minded the ball never gets beyond midfield.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 22, 2005

It's difficult to muster dislike for The Game of Their Lives, which is reasonably interesting, but it needed more grit and inspiration than this straightforward account can provide.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Apr 22, 2005

The Game of Their Lives has little to recommend unless you're jonesing for a generic period piece boasting lots of slow-motion sports montages set to swelling music.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 22, 2005

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 22, 2005

Pure, unadulterated sentiment served up with a straight face, The Game of Their Lives is a middling depiction of one of the all-time great underdog stories in sports history.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 22, 2005

Too many references to the inevitable popularity of soccer in America make [the film] less about the players' lives and more about selling soccer as a spectator sport.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Apr 22, 2005