Goal 3

I have some spare time so I’m rattling off a quick review of Goal! 3, the third and final in the Goal! series.

After enjoying the second one while I was back home I had high hopes for this installment, but sadly felt a little let down for most of it. The plot that had been built up with Santi was all but thrown away and he becomes a background character. Instead the story focuses on two of the England squad as they go through the run up and matches of World Cup 2006.

Don’t expect history to change much over the course of the movie. Also, don’t expect great chroma-key effects. It’s surprising that, given this was always intended to be a trilogy, the budget for this third outing seems so visibly smaller than the first.

On the plus side, once the initial “what’s going on?” effect has passed, the story isn’t that bad. Following the path taken by Goal 2, the writers have focussed even more on the characters than the football which is now more a background setting. In fact, by the end of the film you are sat thinking that there are more important things in life than kicking an inflated pigskin around.

And the thing is, it’s true.

In a way, that does make it a good ending to the trilogy. I was just amazed to see the whole Santi thing vanish. It was the hugest of hooks at the end of the second movie to drag you (or at least me) in for the final installment and, frankly, you don’t actually have to have seen the first two to make sense of the third.

Yes, it’s predictable. Yes, it’s just a soap on the big screen (well, straight-to-DVD screen). But it’s a soap based around football so it’s OK for blokes to watch it.

One tiny highlight is an appearance by Mike “I destroyed Newcastle, I am a fat bastard” Ashley. He’s only there for a minute and his only dialogue is a short, miserable line of profanity. Which is pretty apt, really.