When The Nutmeg News was presented with an advanced screener for the sequel to the original documentary Once In A Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story Of The New York Cosmos, there was consternation among our arts and entertainment beat. Could the second go round of the NASL film hit the same marks of the first?
Well, friends, worry no more as veteran movie critic Harry Rolls for The Nutmeg News movie review site Isn't It Great News has the review.
Harry Rolls - Isn't It Great News
"Batman v Superman. Seinfeld v Newman. Shep Messing v Decency. These are all battles for the ages and all of these reflect the greater battle in ourselves for truth and candor. However, I can say that none of these artifical constructs needed a sequel and so to, do we find ourselves slaving away through NASL 2: Twice In A Lifetime.
If you loved the original NASL you will find yourself bathed in nostalgia for the current time as NASL 2: Twice In A Lifetime takes you back to the golden day of American soccer when everything went up shits creek in the matter of 16 years (or in FC Dallas time, 50).
NASL 2: Twice In A Lifetime, sadly, is highly derivative of the earlier NASL work including failing franchises, misappropriated funds, overpaid players and poor ownership groups. The impetus for the league seems to be finding new ways to fail in spectacular fashion as the soccer world in the United States and Canada looks on in horror.
While NASL 2: Twice In A Lifetime adds some new features to build suspense, like ownership groups removing turf in the middle of the night, none of this derails what is a slow trainwreck attempt towards relevency as potentially 4 teams leave the 12 team league at the end of the 2016 season.
NASL 2: Twice In A Lifetime is like that time you were 16 years old and you tuned into Pink Flamingos at 1:30 in the morning at your dad's condo in Ft Lauderdale. Simultaneously thrilling and not at all what you were expecting, the best part was Divine, and you turned it off half-way through. If you are of a certain age where you remember the original NASL 1: Once In A Lifetime, you will likely enjoy the parellels, but for everyone else, this just feels like the same formulaic Hollywood sequel jammed into an already flooded market.
I give NASL 2: Twice In A Lifetime zero panenkas.