Movie Review: Taika Waititi’s ‘Next Goal Wins’ Is a Sweet, Frothy Diversion but No Knee Slide

 This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows David Fane, left, and Michael Fassbender in a scene from "Next Goal Wins." (Searchlight Pictures via AP)
This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows David Fane, left, and Michael Fassbender in a scene from "Next Goal Wins." (Searchlight Pictures via AP)
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Movie Review: Taika Waititi’s ‘Next Goal Wins’ Is a Sweet, Frothy Diversion but No Knee Slide

 This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows David Fane, left, and Michael Fassbender in a scene from "Next Goal Wins." (Searchlight Pictures via AP)
This image released by Searchlight Pictures shows David Fane, left, and Michael Fassbender in a scene from "Next Goal Wins." (Searchlight Pictures via AP)

In "Next Goal Wins," a soccer coach comes from far away to lead a hapless group of athletes. He's a fish-out-of-water type, ill-suited for the job, but rises to the occasion and everyone feels good at the end. Wait, you're thinking, that's the plot of "Ted Lasso." Well, only kind of.

Writer-director Taika Waititi — the manic, slightly unhinged mind behind "Thor: Love and Thunder" and "Jojo Rabbit" — offers a sports movie that's not, of course, a sports movie and the opposite of whatever Jason Sudeikis was doing on his TV series.

"Next Goal Wins" — "inspired by true events" — stars Michael Fassbender as a bitter Dutch-American soccer coach assigned to help the struggling American Samoa national team qualify for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The team is an international laughing stock and still stinging from having been on the wrong side of the worst loss in international soccer history — a 31-0 thrashing by Australia in 2001.

Waititi and co-writer Iain Morris based their movie on a 2014 British documentary of the same name and you can instantly tell why Waititi gravitated toward the story. It has a clash of civilizations, explores overcoming loss and it has a beautiful lesson about embracing those who are different.

In Waititi's hands, it becomes a sloppy, quirky, pop culture-studded frothy comedy that gently apes other underdog sports movies but doesn't offer much but a mildly funny respite from reality. It makes "Bend it like Beckham" seem really deep.

Waititi himself — he couldn't resist stepping into his own film — frames the movie in the first minutes by playing a priest on American Samoa who promises this will not be a tale of woe but "a tale of woah!" (Shakespeare isn't laughing).

Fassbender here is the opposite of Lasso — he's broken inside, angry outside, egotistical and unyielding, a coach fired from his last three teams and given a career lifeline no one else wants. He has no home-spun wisdom to offer, just routine high school bullying. "Something’s not right about that guy," says one islander. "Well," comes the response. "He is white."

The coach will eventually be redeemed by American Samoa itself, by the nobility of its people and the goodness of their souls, with the movie getting dangerously close to worn out movie cliche territory.

The script had an opportunity to really examine the demand of winning at all costs versus the rewards of merely having fun and having a passion for sports but abandons any lessons in a flurry of team-building montages.

This being a Waititi movie, there's a scattershot of pop culture references — "Karate Kid," "Taken," "The Matrix," "Any Given Sunday" and even Frank Sinatra ("You’re riding high in April, shot down in May"). At times, these seem more like the director's idiosyncrasies than plot advancers.

The script also takes a weird sort of glee mocking the islanders, who are portrayed sometimes as playing dress-up. One sits at a desk with a keyboard and a monitor but no computer and another makes siren noises with his mouth in a police car because of faulty equipment.

There are really nice turns by Oscar Kightley, Will Arnett and Elisabeth Moss, but it's Fassbender who must do the bulk of the lifting here. His accent is spotty and he may initially not have been on the top of everyone's list for the part but he sticks the landing, to mix sports metaphors. "Next Goal Wins" isn't a tale of "woe" or "woah!" but "meh."



‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Tops the US Box Office

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Mason Thames, as Hiccup, riding Night Fury dragon, Toothless in a scene from "How to Train Your Dragon", (Universal Pictures via AP)
This image released by Universal Pictures shows Mason Thames, as Hiccup, riding Night Fury dragon, Toothless in a scene from "How to Train Your Dragon", (Universal Pictures via AP)
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‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Tops the US Box Office

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Mason Thames, as Hiccup, riding Night Fury dragon, Toothless in a scene from "How to Train Your Dragon", (Universal Pictures via AP)
This image released by Universal Pictures shows Mason Thames, as Hiccup, riding Night Fury dragon, Toothless in a scene from "How to Train Your Dragon", (Universal Pictures via AP)

Neither Pixar nor zombies were enough to topple “How to Train Your Dragon" from the No. 1 slot at North American box offices over the weekend. The Universal Pictures live-action remake remained the top film, bringing in $37 million in ticket sales in its second weekend, despite the sizeable new releases of “Elio” and “28 Years Later” , according to studio estimates Sunday. “How To Train Your Dragon” has rapidly amassed $358.2 million worldwide, The Associated Press reported.

Six years after its last entry, the Dean DeBlois-directed “How To Train Your Dragon” has proven a potent revival of the DreamWorks Animation franchise. A sequel is already in the works for the $150 million production, which remakes the 2010 animated tale about a Viking boy and his dragon.

Pixar's “Elio” had a particularly tough weekend. The Walt Disney Co. animation studio has often launched some of its biggest titles in June, including “Cars,” “WALL-E” and “Toy Story 4.” But “Elio,” a science fiction adventure about a boy who dreams of meeting aliens, notched a modest $21 million, the lowest opening ever for Pixar.

“This is a weak opening for a new Pixar movie,” said David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm FranchiseRe. “These would be solid numbers for another original animation film, but this is Pixar, and by Pixar’s remarkable standard, the opening is well below average.”

“Elio,” originally set for release in early 2024, had a bumpy road to the screen. Adrian Molina — co-director of “Coco” — was replaced mid-production by Domee Shi (“Turning Red”) and Madeline Sharafian. Back at Disney’s D23 conference in 2022, America Ferrera appeared to announce her role as Elio’s mother, but the character doesn’t even exist in the revamped film.

Disney and Pixar spent at least $150 million making “Elio,” which didn’t fare any better internationally than it did in North America, bringing in just $14 million from 43 territories. Pixar stumbled coming out of the pandemic before stabilizing performance with 2023’s “Elemental” ($496.4 million worldwide) and 2024’s “Inside Out 2” ($1.7 billion), which was the company's biggest box office hit.

“Elemental” was Pixar's previously lowest earning film, launching with $29.6 million. It rallied in later weeks to collect nearly half a billion dollars at the box office. The company's first movie, “Toy Story,” opened with $29.1 million in 1995, or $60 when adjusted for inflation. It remains to be seen whether “Elio's” decent reviews and “A” from CinemaScore audiences can lead it to repeat “Elemental's” trajectory.

With most schools on summer break, the competition for family audiences was stiff. Disney’s own “Lilo & Stitch,” another live-action remake, continued to pull in young moviegoers. It grossed $9.7 million in its fifth weekend, bringing its global tally to $910.3 million.

“28 Years Later” signaled the return of another, far gorier franchise. Director Danny Boyle reunited with screenwriter Alex Garland to resume their pandemic apocalypse thriller 25 years after “28 Days Later” and 18 years after its sequel, “28 Weeks Later.”

The Sony Pictures release opened with $30 million. That was good enough to give Boyle, the filmmaker of “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Trainspotting,” the biggest opening weekend of his career. The film, which cost $60 million to make, jumps ahead nearly three decades from the outbreak of the so-called rage virus for a coming-of-age story about a 12-year-old (Alfie Williams) venturing out of his family’s protected village. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes co-star.

Reviews have been good (90% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) for “28 Years Later,” though audience reaction (a “B” CinemaScore) is mixed. Boyle has more plans for the zombie franchise, which will next see the release of “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” next year from director Nia DaCosta.

“28 Years Later” added another $30 million in 59 overseas markets.

After its strong start last weekend with $12 million, A24’s “Materialists” held well with $5.8 million in its second weekend. The romantic drama by writer-director Celine Song and starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans has collected $24 million so far.

Next weekend should also be a competitive one in movie theaters, with both “F1,” from Apple and Warner Bros., and Universal’s “Megan 2.0” launching in cinemas.