Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

asc85 As someone who grew up in Northern New Jersey during the rise of the Cosmos in the late 70's/early 80's, I was looking forward to seeing this movie, and it looked so good in the trailers. While it did not play near me (or it came and went so fast I didn't notice), I was still looking forward to seeing this on DVD. However, as you can tell by my rating, I was very much disappointed. I didn't think it was possible to make this film so dull and plodding, but that's what was accomplished. Far too much time was spent on the Pre-Pele days. And their coverage of the Cosmos teams was incomplete and showed a lack of understanding. One example: They talk about the signing of Chinaglia with little hype, but talked about the signing of Beckenbauer as "the first time someone that good jumped to the NASL while still in his prime." In fact, it was Chinaglia who was the first great player to jump to the NASL, and he came over when he was 29 years old. Beckenbauer, on the other hand had been playing in World Cups since 1966, and came to the Cosmos in 1977 at the age of 32. Beckenbauer was still a great player, but like Pele, he was playing on the downside of his career. Indeed, Chinaglia became the greatest scorer in NASL history.Finally, the DVD had a "deleted scene" of the Cosmos having to play a phony Haitian team because the original team "jumped immigration." That was hysterical and something that few people knew about. This absolutely should have been in the original cut, compared to many of the other choices that Miramax made.

OldSchoolWhitey64 I really liked it, but it just moves by too fast.There were so many moments and subjects that they should have dwelled on a little longer,that they cut away too fast from.This may be because the attitude expressed early in the movie,about Americans' attention spans;that ours are so short,they can't focus long enough on the game of soccer(i.e. football)to appreciate it,and I think the filmmakers edited it to fit that,in the assumption that us Yanks wouldn't find it interesting if the film had been done like their football docs.Maybe they're right,maybe most of us wouldn't,but I know I would have,and I wish they had done so.They could have filled it up with so much more detail,more stories,and so on.Good ,but should have been much more.

johnstevens1711 I knew a little about the New York Cosmos before I saw this movie, and had always been intrigued as to how Pele, Beckenbauer and others came to play in a country that had seemed so apathetic to association football or soccer.The movie tells the story of exactly how this happened, beginning with the purchase of the Cosmos by Steve Ross of Warners Communication as a favour to the owners of Atlantic Records in the mid 1970's. They immediately signed the world's best known player Pele, and as media interest grew, the popularity of the club also grew. Following Pele, several established European players came over the join the clubs of the growing league, whilst the Cosmos recruited Italian Chinaglia and German legend Beckenbauer amongst others. The Cosmos ended up playing in front of 80,000 fans and winning several league championships, before imploding in the early 1980's.The film features testimony and recollections from many of the principal protagonists, although the deceased Ross is not present, and Pele declined to be involved. This makes for some good moments as several different people claim the credit for the same thing on more than one occasion. The soundtrack is fantastic and the soccer action well presented, although not using classical football broadcasting techniques, such as wide angle shots. I enjoyed the film, which unfolded the story of the Cosmos in an interesting and rather fun way. My favourite moments were recollections from the amateur American players who had the luck to play with several of the greatest players to play the game. These men seemed humble and were all amusing and engaging. They certainly looked better than the arrogant Chinaglia.My only sustained criticism of the film is that it rather rushed the ending and the slide towards oblivion of the Cosmos, dwelling a little too much on the signing of Pele. However, this is a minor flaw. Any fan of football interested in the history of the game should watch this well made documentary.

Cabrone What a crazy laugh the New York Cosmos must have been back in the 70s! This is the story of one man and his dream to turn what was not much more than a pub team playing in a delapidated stadium into one of the best. Although the wheels came completely off in the early 80s it must have been huge fun whilst the show was on the road. As a football fan what would I have given to have Pele and Beckenbauer in my team (maybe even the crazy Chinaglia too), football is all about passion and dreams and the management team at the Cosmos delivered the fantasy in spades.The film runs at a slick pace and there are lots of funny moments, the Mick Jagger bit made me laugh out loud. If you love football go and see it, you won't be disappointed. If you don't you'll still enjoy it as this is as much about all the clashing egos as much as what the team did on the pitch.