last section is a letdown

Rating: 7/10 (16 January 2011)

The first part of this film, dealing with the growing relationship between Michael and his new family, was heart-warming and excellent. Sandra Bullock was delightful as the iron-willed Mom. The boy, S.J., was used only for humour, which was a shame. Much more could have been made of the girl, Collins, if only for eye candy and to take some of the spotlight off Ms. Bullock. The Dad was pretty much a non-entity. But I thought by far the best part of the movie was about the relationships among all these people. Did everything really go that smoothly inside the family? I doubt it. A lot more could have been done with the family.
Nevertheless, I was moved by the film. Then came the football part, which was pure Hollywood schlock. Oh my goodness, it's the big game, and guess who's not succeeding? I think I'm gonna have a heart attack. Time's running out. He's going to fail, he's going to let everybody down. Oh, no! But wait. Wait! Can it be, is it true? Glory hallelujah, in the nick of time, he's redeemed himself. Cue the victory music and crank it up loud. Ycchh! For me all that entirely predictable storyline, that stale old sequence seen in hundreds and hundreds of movies coming out of Hollywood, purely paint-by-numbers plotting, took a whole lot of the polish off what otherwise could have been a much, much better film. Shame on the scriptwriter who let himself be talked into that junk.