| Focus Features | Release Date: March 10, 2023 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
|
Positive:
7
Mixed:
22
Negative:
5
|
Watch Now
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
| Stream On |
|
Critic Reviews
ColliderMar 7, 2023
It’s that heart that makes Champions better than expected, a shaggy underdog story that might be a bit overlong and a bit awkward in places, but with charming characters that help smooth out these rough edges. In doing so, Bobby Farrelly sticks to his comedic sensibilities, creating an endearing comedy that doesn’t need to break from the formula of similar films that have come before.
Read full review
Screen RantMar 7, 2023
The cast’s chemistry uplifts this film and makes certain moments all the more enjoyable. Everyone is clearly having a great time, and it shows in every scene. While the film probably won’t be remembered after audiences leave the theater, Champions is a lighthearted, feel-good sports movie that does exactly what it sets out to accomplish. It doesn’t do anything out of the norm, but it is a solid effort from Farrelly and Rizzo that will certainly boost one’s mood after watching.
Read full review
Mar 10, 2023
Champions has its heart in the right place, trying to teach the audience, through Marcus, to see his players and the actors portraying them without condescension. It’s possible to admire the message, though, without thinking much of a movie that, Marcus’ aspirations notwithstanding, belongs in the minor leagues.
Read full review
Mar 9, 2023
Champions wants to be a clone of the 1976 sports movie classic “The Bad News Bears,” right down to giving us a Tatum O’Neal-style toughie, Cosentino (Madison Tevlin). While Tevlin is very funny and convincing, Harrelson fails to plumb the depths of unlikability in his character that Walter Matthau brought to Coach Buttermaker.
Read full review
RogerEbert.comMar 8, 2023
Based on the 2018 Spanish film “Campeones,” Bobby Farrelly’s Champions follows the basic plot of every other inspirational sports movie about a hangdog coach in need of redemption. But it has the added cringiness of using its team of Disabled basketball players solely as a method towards this redemption while completely failing to see their humanity.
Read full review
Mar 7, 2023
The solo directorial debut of Bobby Farrelly goes for broad laughs and a crowd-pleasing spirit, never mocking its disabled characters but, instead, celebrating their irreverent sense of humour and athletic skill. Unfortunately, that does not keep Champions from feeling patronising and cloying at times.
Read full review
IndieWireMar 7, 2023
As soon as you find yourself getting potentially sucked in by its sweetness, it throws out a fart joke or another gag that hits at the lowest common denominator. Most grimly, it assumes that its viewers need to be convinced to give the humanity of the intellectually disabled. As a society, we should be better than Marcus Markovich, and it shouldn’t take a movie to remind us of that.
Read full review
Mar 7, 2023The Film StageMar 10, 2023
There’s a version of the film that feels engaging and well-considered. It pops its head out every once in a while (most notably in an FBI impersonation sequence led by a gut-busting Kaitlin Olson). But it can’t even stay above water in a shallow script. Despite its name, Champions rides the bench.
Read full review
Mar 9, 2023
The dispiriting experience of watching Champions is slowly realizing that, notwithstanding an off-color line here or there (a player with Down syndrome introduces himself as “your homie with an extra chromie”), it’s exactly the sort of formulaic crowd-pleaser that just about anybody might have directed.
Read full review
Mar 7, 2023
Harrelson never seems to have his head in the game, and not because he’s playing a character just waiting for his shot to coach the NBA. He and Farrelly appear to be slumming it in much the same way that Marcus is, as if their basic efforts working with a cast with special needs is feel-good and charitable enough.
Read full review
Movie NationMar 7, 2023
In taking a second swing at a comedy where the object is to make special needs characters funny, but not the object of fun, you’d figure that Farrelly might have had the nerve to dance closer to the edge, or at least find some big, warm laughs. And you’d think that Harrelson could have made this funnier in his sleep. Neither is the case.
Read full review
Mar 7, 2023
As Champions tediously veers between the increasingly rote narrative beats of an inspirational sports story and a love story of opposites attract, it further stresses its own archaic qualities with a consciously anachronistic soundtrack that includes Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping,” EMF’s “Unbelievable,” and Outkast’s “Hey Ya.”
Read full review
Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
