After following the war in Ukraine and watching a ton of largely colorless depressive movies I really needed some feel good story. This looked colorful and energetic from the trailer and it got good viewer ratings. I don't know who Kurt Warner is and don't watch NFL, but as a man I watch pretty much any sport movie.
The movie is well shot, has fine acting, the sets look real, and the production overall looks high enough. It just looks like a quality movie that people will rate highly for that alone. Unfortunately the script is very weak and the story goes nowhere. Firstly it's not really a sports movie. It's largely about how Kurt found and dated his wife. He meets a woman with 2 kids. They try to get by on little cash while he remains undrafted with a football career going nowhere. This is by the main story. Football takes up maybe 20 minutes of the movie. The love story takes up over 1 hour. Nearly all scenes are Kurt hanging out with his girlfriend and her kids while living in poverty. To me as a man that's rather boring. And furthermore the movie is about an athlete so it's not even marketed as a romance hence women won't know that this is a movie for them. NFL is only shown at the very end of the movie. He joins a team and then from then on they show a bit of training and him winning Superbowl minutes later. That's the plot I wanted overall! He's apparently the greatest undrafted player ever and a legend of the game. But up till the 5 last minutes of the movie it was impossible for me to even know if he made it in NFL or not. The movie is just about his relationship which is a shame as the football in it is amazingly shot. It's clear who is running where and all the athletes show a ton of energy. It feels like real football which I haven't seen in movies before. I guess you can create magic by using CGI instead of having fans sitting around and doing only boring shots. It looks like they rented some indoor location with blue screens all around. The camera is on the field following each play. It's great! But it's a very small part of the movie and once it appears you are already tired of the story. Keep in mind the story is about this poor couple struggling each day. Then 1 hour and 20 minutes into the movie he is picked by an NFL team. Then we see the wife walking around in fancy high heels as they move into a mansion. So what happened? They were poor and then 1 minute later they are super wealthy. What's the story here? The plot never clearly moves anywhere. Stuff just happens to this family.
It's a shame such an impressive project feels produced. The story lacks passion and creativity. The script goes nowhere for the first hour. We get a few scenes with Kurt's friend. 1 scene of him working in a supermarket and playing around there. Maybe 2 short training scenes before he made NFL. Maybe 2 football games before the NFL part. And Anna Paquin is not even that interesting. Her face looks weird in this role because of her face job and she doesn't quite look like a poor housewife. She looks like a 40 year old actress who underwent a few surgeries in Hollywood. There is no great emotional bond between her and Zachary Levi. Both do a good job, but it's nothing energetic or romantic. Just a bunch of scenes of them being together that feel real, but don't push the plot anywhere. You should have cut 40 minutes of this stuff and shown more football. As of now it's not really a movie for sport fans. It's a weak romance. To me it's rather boring, but looks impressive. But I can't judge romance so I don't know if it's a good or bad one. I just didn't enjoy it. It's just a movie showing daily life scene by scene.
The movie is well shot, has fine acting, the sets look real, and the production overall looks high enough. It just looks like a quality movie that people will rate highly for that alone. Unfortunately the script is very weak and the story goes nowhere. Firstly it's not really a sports movie. It's largely about how Kurt found and dated his wife. He meets a woman with 2 kids. They try to get by on little cash while he remains undrafted with a football career going nowhere. This is by the main story. Football takes up maybe 20 minutes of the movie. The love story takes up over 1 hour. Nearly all scenes are Kurt hanging out with his girlfriend and her kids while living in poverty. To me as a man that's rather boring. And furthermore the movie is about an athlete so it's not even marketed as a romance hence women won't know that this is a movie for them. NFL is only shown at the very end of the movie. He joins a team and then from then on they show a bit of training and him winning Superbowl minutes later. That's the plot I wanted overall! He's apparently the greatest undrafted player ever and a legend of the game. But up till the 5 last minutes of the movie it was impossible for me to even know if he made it in NFL or not. The movie is just about his relationship which is a shame as the football in it is amazingly shot. It's clear who is running where and all the athletes show a ton of energy. It feels like real football which I haven't seen in movies before. I guess you can create magic by using CGI instead of having fans sitting around and doing only boring shots. It looks like they rented some indoor location with blue screens all around. The camera is on the field following each play. It's great! But it's a very small part of the movie and once it appears you are already tired of the story. Keep in mind the story is about this poor couple struggling each day. Then 1 hour and 20 minutes into the movie he is picked by an NFL team. Then we see the wife walking around in fancy high heels as they move into a mansion. So what happened? They were poor and then 1 minute later they are super wealthy. What's the story here? The plot never clearly moves anywhere. Stuff just happens to this family.
It's a shame such an impressive project feels produced. The story lacks passion and creativity. The script goes nowhere for the first hour. We get a few scenes with Kurt's friend. 1 scene of him working in a supermarket and playing around there. Maybe 2 short training scenes before he made NFL. Maybe 2 football games before the NFL part. And Anna Paquin is not even that interesting. Her face looks weird in this role because of her face job and she doesn't quite look like a poor housewife. She looks like a 40 year old actress who underwent a few surgeries in Hollywood. There is no great emotional bond between her and Zachary Levi. Both do a good job, but it's nothing energetic or romantic. Just a bunch of scenes of them being together that feel real, but don't push the plot anywhere. You should have cut 40 minutes of this stuff and shown more football. As of now it's not really a movie for sport fans. It's a weak romance. To me it's rather boring, but looks impressive. But I can't judge romance so I don't know if it's a good or bad one. I just didn't enjoy it. It's just a movie showing daily life scene by scene.