REVIEWED - GOAL! 2: LIVING THE DREAMAN URCHIN from the slums gains fame as a pop singer, movie star or sportsman. Along the way, he betrays those honest, loyal - but unfashionable - chums who supported him when he still brushed his teeth with axle grease. Never fear. As in Dickens's Great Expectations, the corrupted hero will, we suspect, eventually come to his senses and return to the bosom of his original support group.
This tired scenario was acted out two years ago in a clumsy football extravaganza named Goal! That film, whose titular explanation point promised more excitement than its creators could ever hope to deliver, looked like the work of somebody who made pop videos for a living. Its hilariously dreadful successor looks like the work of somebody who pays the bills by manufacturing garden furniture or horse brasses (or something else that doesn't involve cameras and actors).
Goal! 2 is just like Goal!, only much, much worse. As the film begins, young Santiago, still played by the only intermittently animated Kuno Becker, finds Real Madrid attempting to lure him away from Newcastle United. On the way to meet the Spanish suits, the striker's manager, mindful that the movie around him hopes to play in Akron, explains the significance of the potential move.
"The biggest club in Europe, winner of over 100 trophies," he says. "Football - or soccer - is a game played by two teams of 11 players with a round inflatable ball," he doesn't quite add. To the great relief of the film's second unit, who had a frightful time making Newcastle look glamorous for Goal!, Santiago makes for Madrid and the temptations of the flesh.
The second part of a supposed trilogy - who in the name of heaven will pay to see all three? - Goal! 2 manages the very rare feat of being awful in a consistently entertaining way. Revel at the eerily mute performances of David Beckham, Ronaldo and Zinedane Zidane. Chortle at Anna Friel's turn as the Geordie with a heart of gold who chooses to keep nursing rather than follow her man to a life of luxury.
Best of all, throw back your head and scream at the subplot concerning a poor Spanish boy who might be the hero's brother. "I live in poverty," he actually says. "Poverty is an economic condition characterised by deprivation and want," he doesn't really continue.
