Very inspirational. Absolute outstanding talent portraited very well here in this movie

This is a truly wonderful film that all the family can watch. Kevin de Paula is excellent as Pele and all the supporting cast were just brilliant. the early parts of the movie were very entertaining and showed Pele's early life with his friends and the antics they got up to. There are some truly funny moments and also some sadness. The actors who played members of the Brazilian football team were first class and looked like they could genuinely play, but Kevin de Paula's skills were outstanding and it was like looking at the real Pele.Over all a wonderful movie about a man for whom the word legend really does apply.Loved this movie so much and I am sure I will watch it many times.

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.

This is one of the worst films I've EVER seen & that's a shame because I grew up & fan of Pele' & looked at him as almost a mythical character with his ability to make opposing teams look as if they are playing the game for the first time so when I saw it was a film about the life of Pele' I couldn't wait to watch but then I pressed play & all that excitement went out the window..! First off, it's the life of Pele' so of course that start with Pele' as a child & instead of showing us his childhood they tried to make it funny in which that & a lot of the scenes just didn't work.. Especially the part where they have a play by play announcer on a PA at a game that Pele' & his teammates are so poor that they aren't just barefoot but shirtless as well then the "my Mother & father both have horrible low paying jobs & since I don't want to end up like them Id better make this football/soccer thing work" shtick was agonizingly painful to watch as was the rest of this film but as with all films that I start I show the respect to watch until the end no matter how badly I want to gouge the eyes outta my head with a rusty screwdriver & sadly I've lost an hour & forty three minutes of my life that I would have rather used staring at the sun as I poured rubbing alcohol into paper cuts..! But that's just My-Two-Cent