My biggest question going into “Next Goal Wins” was simple. Is this a return to form for director Taika Waititi. The director of such deliciously quirky treats such as “What We Do in the Shadows”, “Hunt for the Wilderpeople”, and “Jojo Rabbit” found himself drawn into the moneymaking blockbuster machine known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The results weren’t great. “Thor: Ragnarok” was tolerable yet frustrating. “Thor: Love and Thunder” was an abysmal mess.

So following on the heels of “Love and Thunder” is the feel-good sports comedy “Next Goal Wins”. So I ask again – is it a return to form for the undeniably talented Waititi? Well, not exactly. Instead it’s a mind-boggling misfire that sees the filmmaker more absorbed in his preoccupations than with telling a good story. It’s even more bewildering that a filmmaker so notorious for doing his own thing would make a film this glaringly by the numbers.

The movie has a great lead in Michael Fassbender and the story (written by Waititi and Iain Morris) starts promising. Inspired by true events and (at least for a time) laced with Waititi’s wacky sense of humor, “Next Goal Wins” sees Fassbender playing Thomas Rognen, a volatile American soccer coach on the outs with the United States Soccer Federation. But rather than straight-up fire him, the board, which includes his estranged wife and her new beau (played by the woefully underused Elisabeth Moss and Will Arnett), assign him to the most undesirable job in all of football.

In the 2001 World Cup Qualifiers the American Samoa national team suffered the worst defeat in the history of international football – a 31-0 drumming by Australia. Believe it or not, since then they’ve only gotten worse. In fact, we learn they’ve never scored a goal in the history of their team. Enter the boozy, soured, and frustrated Thomas who has been sent to American Samoa to coach their national team.

Early on Waititi teases us with an amusing fish out of water culture-clash comedy. There are some hilarious bits with Fassbender’s embittered and self-centered Thomas clanging against the deeply religious and hard-working Samoan locals. Equally funny are some of the early scenes with Thomas and his team, a talentless but good-hearted bunch who are as bad on the field as their reputation says. Yet they never lose the support of Tavita (Oscar Kightley), the President of the Football Federation of American Samoa who gives Thomas a single task – just score one goal.

But this is where the storytelling starts to go off track as Waititi’s more obsessive interests derail other facets of his movie. Take Thomas and his team. You would think their relationships would form the core of the story. Well, they do but only in a broad sense. Instead Waititi gets caught up in telling an on-the-nose side story involving a transitioning faʻafafine player named Jaiyah (played by Kaimana). So much so that most of the other players are nothing more than faces. We’re supposed to care about them, but hardly anyone other than Jaiyah gets a backstory or even a personality. Even Waititi’s camera stays so fixated on Jaiyah that the rest of the team feel like tag-alongs.

But not only do the majority of the relationships get shortchanged, so does the entire sports angle itself. Nothing about it comes across as authentic mainly because Waititi doesn’t put the time or effort into making it believable. We never see any kind of practice or preparation that would make us believe the American Samoan team could ever function in a qualifying match much less score a goal. That’s because Waititi’s interests are elsewhere.

That would be fine except Waititi wants us to buy into the film’s big feel-good finish – a lazy, super cheesy, emotionally inert retread of ground covered by countless other sports movies. We get the big game, the lovable underdogs, the mean and overly cocky opposing team, the moment where all seems lost, the big inspirational speech, and the rousing triumph where the music swells as everyone goes wild. It’s a surprisingly unoriginal and frustratingly hollow ending from a filmmaker trying to skate by on just representation and a few good gags. Or maybe he doesn’t expect much from his audience. Either way, Waititi’s latest misses the net by a mile. “Next Goal Wins” hits theaters November 17th.

VERDICT – 2 STARS