This movie sees Santiago getting transferred to Real Madrid at the start of the new season. The celebrity life goes to his head, and he is 'caught' with a beautiful lady (hints of the Beckham-Loos scandal?). He also has to come to terms with injury, and with his mother and her new life.
This movie had some good material with which to give Santiago's story some depth. But it is appallingly executed.
Firstly, Santiago gets transferred to Real Madrid and given a key role in their team (coming on as a sub, then earning a starting place) immediately. This is after just three first team appearances for Newcastle United. Villa took until he was 28 to get signed to Real. Beckham was of a similar age and struggled to make the first team on a regular basis. But Santi is fast-tracked. In a team that counts the likes of Zidane and Raul among their regular players? !? After three games for a so-so Premiership team?!? It's ridiculous and totally unbelievable.
Also, Gavin Harris is already at Real. Ignoring the simple and pertinent question "why would Real buy a player who was rubbish even when he was at Newcastle?" it seems implausible that they would follow up their purchase of Harris (who spends most of his Real time underperforming) by buying a similarly untested player in Santiago from the same team.
We can overlook the coincidence that Snti's mother now lives in Spain, the country he's just moved to. But the kid brother of Santi acts like a total brat and the only proof he has that Santi is his brother is one photograph. There's no reason for Santi to pursue a relationship with him and no struggle involved in Santi deciding to do so. When they eventually are "united" there is no character development involved. They're just suddenly a happy family together.
Once again, Santi falls prey to the celebrity culture surrounding football. While you could forgive the character for this in the first movie as he seemed innocent and overwhelmed, by the second movie he starts to just look like an idiot. He makes the same mistakes all over again and doesn't seem to have learned from his past experiences at all. The character arc suggests that if there is a third instalment, he'll be a total Ronaldo-style prima dona.
The plot is very weak, overall. This might be forgivable were it an excuse to put football on the big screen - if the football was the focus. But it clearly isn't. The goals are clearly CGI'd and fake looking, and the games aren't shown to have any flow. Teams get lucky with final minute goals, but not every game with the same player being responsible every time. Yet, this movie thinks that is acceptable.
The new manager was very stiff and barely made any impact upon the flow of the movie. This was an opportunity missed, in my opinion. An interesting movie could have been forged from the torn loyalties players might have when moving clubs and working under a new manager - return games at their old club, being forced to play in a different position or style of play, etc. But this was completely overlooked.
In summary, this movie seemed to want to retread the ground covered in the first movie, while incorporating too many sub-plots. Overall, it felt like nothing was dealt with thoroughly, and the plot felt forced and confused - it felt like those involved couldn't decide what they wanted the movie to be about. Too formulaic, it came off as a "let's do a sequel because football's popular" kind of movie, instead of being a strong development of the areas hinted at in the first movie.
I'd recommend watching a full Accrington Stanley game over watching this movie. That's how bad it was.
This movie had some good material with which to give Santiago's story some depth. But it is appallingly executed.
Firstly, Santiago gets transferred to Real Madrid and given a key role in their team (coming on as a sub, then earning a starting place) immediately. This is after just three first team appearances for Newcastle United. Villa took until he was 28 to get signed to Real. Beckham was of a similar age and struggled to make the first team on a regular basis. But Santi is fast-tracked. In a team that counts the likes of Zidane and Raul among their regular players? !? After three games for a so-so Premiership team?!? It's ridiculous and totally unbelievable.
Also, Gavin Harris is already at Real. Ignoring the simple and pertinent question "why would Real buy a player who was rubbish even when he was at Newcastle?" it seems implausible that they would follow up their purchase of Harris (who spends most of his Real time underperforming) by buying a similarly untested player in Santiago from the same team.
We can overlook the coincidence that Snti's mother now lives in Spain, the country he's just moved to. But the kid brother of Santi acts like a total brat and the only proof he has that Santi is his brother is one photograph. There's no reason for Santi to pursue a relationship with him and no struggle involved in Santi deciding to do so. When they eventually are "united" there is no character development involved. They're just suddenly a happy family together.
Once again, Santi falls prey to the celebrity culture surrounding football. While you could forgive the character for this in the first movie as he seemed innocent and overwhelmed, by the second movie he starts to just look like an idiot. He makes the same mistakes all over again and doesn't seem to have learned from his past experiences at all. The character arc suggests that if there is a third instalment, he'll be a total Ronaldo-style prima dona.
The plot is very weak, overall. This might be forgivable were it an excuse to put football on the big screen - if the football was the focus. But it clearly isn't. The goals are clearly CGI'd and fake looking, and the games aren't shown to have any flow. Teams get lucky with final minute goals, but not every game with the same player being responsible every time. Yet, this movie thinks that is acceptable.
The new manager was very stiff and barely made any impact upon the flow of the movie. This was an opportunity missed, in my opinion. An interesting movie could have been forged from the torn loyalties players might have when moving clubs and working under a new manager - return games at their old club, being forced to play in a different position or style of play, etc. But this was completely overlooked.
In summary, this movie seemed to want to retread the ground covered in the first movie, while incorporating too many sub-plots. Overall, it felt like nothing was dealt with thoroughly, and the plot felt forced and confused - it felt like those involved couldn't decide what they wanted the movie to be about. Too formulaic, it came off as a "let's do a sequel because football's popular" kind of movie, instead of being a strong development of the areas hinted at in the first movie.
I'd recommend watching a full Accrington Stanley game over watching this movie. That's how bad it was.