Boring, long, and too preachy.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

In summer, I watched the World Championship with enthusiasm. Having heard that director Sönke Wortmann were with the German team and would make a movie, I was really interested and expected fascinating impressions "from back office". But the result is disappointing: Jürgen Klinsmann is shouting and motivating the team all the time, the players are really engaged, joking around or answering simple questions and the games are repeated once again in short versions with all goals. But there are no views on the players' relations (except the competition between Lehmann and Kahn), moments of conflicts or controversies have found no way into the movie (perhaphs, there was nothing than harmony...) and no one in the film is really portrayed as an individual. The movie is an documentary which could have been made by any DFB official (German Football Association) who wants to produce a big seized promotion video. Maybe, Sönke Wortmann earns enough money to work on a better movie in the following time...

Well, I am used to the omni-present criticism of Germans. That's why I would like to say: well done, Sönke! Great documentation, funny situations. Would have loved to see more of the boot camp in Italy, though;) Looking forward to the DVD release with additional scenes. My friend and me had to smile every other scene. And it was quite an insight to see what happens in the locker room before, during and after a game - especially for someone who (like me) has never played a team sport on a competition level. And even Ballack grew on me - I never really liked him before - which might have to do with my fondness of Werder Bremen, though;)But of course the hero is Torsten "Lutscher" Frings! Why? See for yourself!!

After watching the trailer, everyone, who had the chance of participating the world cup this summer in Germany, wishes to watch this movie, especially, if you are a German team sympathizer.What do you get: 108 Minutes of an intense look of a great team with a lot of young, but talented soccer players from Germany, all the way from about three weeks before the opening match to the last match of the team, the "Third Place match". It isn't an usual documentary, you only get the main events during the match of the German team.The movie begins after losing the semifinal against Italy, just watching sad and disappointed players. Then, the whole journey is told, from the fitness training over the first group matches to the finals. You'll see some funny events during this time, a lot of interviews with both players and staff. You also get the chance to see the last words of the coach before the matches start.Almost everyone, who watched this movie, felt the atmosphere of those fantastic four weeks here in Germany. You may need to be interested in the sport to enjoy this movie. More than that, you should know at least the main characters (coach Klinsmann e.g.). Otherwise you will have some problems to understand some of the events taking place during the movie.Bottom line: Midfielder Frings said at the end of the movie: "we (the team) should have deserved more" (meaning more then the third place). After accompanying the team through this movie, you probably say: "you're definitely right". As viewer, you will realize the broken dream, but you will enjoy this movie.

I think this documentary is very typical of Germans in particular and of people in general. Now, we have all seen the national team play the World Cup and we were very satisfied with the outcome of the tournament (funnily enough, when Germany made runner's up in 2002, people weren't as frantic about Germany and the German team as they are now, after the World Cup 2006 IN Germany). And when I watched the matches, I observed the unaggressive and unobtrusive birth of what news magazines called the NEW NATIONALISM. I didn't really take part in this, but I didn't mind it either (I just thought: Oh, O.K. why not, after fifty years of forbidden patriotism, let the baby have his bottle).But this documentary is overdoing it a bit. First of all, I didn't like Sönke Wortmanns DAS WUNDER VON BERN, because it was way too corny as a movie and it didn't discuss the controversial link between German soccer and German nationalism shortly after WWII at all (For example, it didn't mention how Peco Bauwens, the head of the German soccer association, held a speech just after Germany won the World Cup in 1954, talking about the connection between physical education and nationalism in a way you'd probably only expect it from someone like Hitler).And now this: A film that takes us on a trip into the locker room for the one and only reason to satisfy our curiosity. We don't really learn anything new about the strategy of coach Jürgen Klinsmann or about the physical part of soccer. This documentary quenches nothing but our thirst for the invasion of privacy. In a way, it is not very different from Big Brother: We do not satisfy ourselves any longer with seeing our soccer players on the field, no, we have to follow them everywhere: into the locker rooms, into the hallways of the stadiums' catacombs, everywhere! I still don't understand why the soccer players let Wortmann invade their privacy to such an extent. I can only think of two reasons: money and vanity! And Wortmann is a copycat, too. He knew that a French director had had an incredible success doing a documentary on the French team in 1998, when the French won the World Cup. He knew that a lot of money was to be made on such a documentary, and that this was an opportunity he couldn't miss.Now, I know that people are going to say: If you are so against it, why did you go and see it. The reason is: I am like everyone else. Sometimes when I go shopping I look at all these magazines such as GALA, BUNTE and so on (For the non-German readers: these are magazines that solely discuss the private life of celebrities or wannabe celebrities), and I catch myself reading or leafing through one or two of them. It's the same mechanism that comes into play when you witness a car accident: You look! You watch the ambulance, the casualties, the police, because you are so unbelievably curious. And this very same mechanism made me watch this documentary. I watched it out of pure curiosity, but I didn't really learn anything watching it. And, on me,it had the same effect as a car accident: I felt ashamed of my curiosity!