canoarbr I grew up having Pelé as my greatest hero, the closest figure to the Superman i've ever seen. I thought this movie would be a Pelé's biography, but I was totally disappointed, not only by the cliches, but also by the incredible mistakes about his history. Pelé was already a star in Brazil in 1958. He. didn't play the first two games in that World Cup because he was recovering from an injury. He was nationwide recognized as Pelé, not as Dico Nascimento. Feola wasn't the mean guy as shown in the movie (by the opposite, in fact) and so on. Don't waste your time.

Samrat Mitra I did enjoy this film on many levels and it ticks the boxes for the audience this film targets! The music makes it's presence felt and I looked up the composer: no other than AR Rehman! I am buying the DVD and the CD once they are out!

Sandra Milner This is a family film more than a football film. In case you were unaware, family films are not just movies that can by watched by anyone of any age, but specific genre film that can be watched by everyone at the same time, as in a family, often at home.As such, don't expect much depth or drama. There is a death, but it's early on so that it doesn't "hurt" too much. The Lion King and Bambi had early deaths too. This is just like that. The story has a lot of clichés, poor-vs-rich, black-vs-white, South America vs Europe, players too poor for shoes, children committing minor theft, parents against the game (but then changing their minds), Pele's style criticized (but then it turns out to be the best style), the bad (evil, not quality) players turning good, child Pele promising to win the World Cup for his crying dad, practicing with fruits, etc. I'm not going to list them all, but if there is a cliché in this film, they most likely have used it.Although they are clichés, it's not a bad thing that they mentioned them. The rich-poor divide is real, so as the racial divide in Brazil, but this film doesn't shy away from these issues. It comes out as a Brazilian nationalist film "We're all Brazilian, rich or poor, black or white, born here or elsewhere" but it's more heartwarming than chest-thumping. Europe still thought of South America as a colony and Italy, for example, was notorious for poaching South American players with Italian heritage to play for the Italian national team. The even poached previous world cup winners from Argentina, which is illegal now.This film is more like one of the many films of orphans or street kids doing cute things, but with a football flavor.I don't blame this film for this family-oriented direction. Brazil also made a dark football film, Heleno, but it did not receive a lot of success. The family-oriented market is a lucrative one. Watch Heleno if you want a real biopic about a footballer, even though there's even less football there.If you like a feel-good family movie about the adventures of street kids, watch Bekas (2012).If you want a football movie from the same era (also set in South America in the same time period) then watch Montevideo: Taste of a Dream (2010).These are my wine-pairing recommendations.As for Pele: Birth of a Legend, it is what it is, a cute, family football film about poor kids that speak English. The fact that they speak English tells you about the target audience more than anything my review ever could.

agreatstory Like the excellent Kevin Costner film: "McFarland USA" this movie sensitively shows how sport can significantly alter a people's identity (in this case the entire nation of Brazil was uplifted from a sense of inferiority within the world community, to a pride in their own uniqueness). The acting is good. The sports action scenes are remarkable (how did they get an actor with such great soccer skills?) and the music is by the great A.R. Raman. A lot of care was put into the making of this film, but a lot was lost, I feel, by having the actors speak mostly in English. And it wasn't dubbed English, it was the Brazilian actors trotting out their heavily accented English. That had the effect of taking away much of the authenticity the film had worked so hard to achieve. (That the real-life Pelé has a cameo appearance - and thus takes the viewer out of the scene's intended verisimilitude - is, perhaps, excusable - I can cut it that slack). One more grumble: the movie trailers announced: "With Rodrigo Santoro". I will see anything with him in it - he is a terrific actor. But he appears for LITERALLY FIVE SECONDS! Really! That is unacceptable marketing...'bait and switch', actually. But see the movie anyway. (BTW, I met Pelé in 1984. We talked for about ten minutes, and at one point, after we had been briefly interrupted, he put his arm around me and said: "So, my Brazilian-American friend, where were we?" He had a golden air about him, and yet was completely down-to-earth even though we talked about cosmic reality. To listen to my five minute audio recording about meeting Pelé, search for "Pelé And His Brazilian- American Friend".