This film starts off with a promising look at a beautiful suburban neighborhood where all of a sudden Steve Guttenberg arrives and discovers that he's moving into the most dilapidated foster home on the block. He's on a year-long parole as a gambling addict, and for some reason working as the handyman where a group of kids are recruited to start their own soccer team. The premise starts off badly and becomes a stereotypical comedy of bratty kids reformed as well as him under the guidance of the annoyingly perfect Sophie Lorain who plays "Little Miss Fix It" to everybody she meets. Too bad she couldn't have started with her house before venturing out into becoming a foster soccer mom!
A hideously bad cook who has cockroach races, the heavy set kid with flatulence (passing gas in his sleep which sets Guttenberg on a nutty rampage) and bullies who suddenly turn into saintly teenagers as they learn the importance of teamwork, just a few of the cliched elements of a straight to video comedy that ripped off "Mighty Ducks" (referenced here along with "Bad News Bears"), which I have not seen, and after seeing this may avoid permanently.
Lorain tries too hard to make her character likable, but unfortunately that only reveals a passive/aggressive attempt at manipulation, getting Guttenberg to coach the team, giving him the biggest turnaround change in a single character in the shortest period of time. She even begins to blackmail undertaker for help, and he's presented in a rather stereotypical flaming way that makes you hiss his very presence. After a while, Guttenberg begins to grate on the nerve, and by this time in his career, he was a little bit too long in the tooth to be acting like he did in "Three Men and a Baby". The script is completely contrived, unrealistic and the acting, while passable, only gives us cardboard cutout characters that aren't really rootable.
A hideously bad cook who has cockroach races, the heavy set kid with flatulence (passing gas in his sleep which sets Guttenberg on a nutty rampage) and bullies who suddenly turn into saintly teenagers as they learn the importance of teamwork, just a few of the cliched elements of a straight to video comedy that ripped off "Mighty Ducks" (referenced here along with "Bad News Bears"), which I have not seen, and after seeing this may avoid permanently.
Lorain tries too hard to make her character likable, but unfortunately that only reveals a passive/aggressive attempt at manipulation, getting Guttenberg to coach the team, giving him the biggest turnaround change in a single character in the shortest period of time. She even begins to blackmail undertaker for help, and he's presented in a rather stereotypical flaming way that makes you hiss his very presence. After a while, Guttenberg begins to grate on the nerve, and by this time in his career, he was a little bit too long in the tooth to be acting like he did in "Three Men and a Baby". The script is completely contrived, unrealistic and the acting, while passable, only gives us cardboard cutout characters that aren't really rootable.
