Also known as Goalkeeper of the Galaxy, Russian director Dzhanik Fayziev's sci-fi blockbuster was originally released in 3D (which must have been something to behold), and takes inspiration from a French TV cartoon saga, Galactik Football, though the resemblance is superficial. It's a wild borscht mish-mash whose influences include Japanese anime, Luc Besson fantasias, American comics, Slavic folklore (the names "Cherno" and "Belo" should be familiar to American Gods readers), and, of course, videogames. Plus there's a cuddly monster who seems kin to the Luck Dragon from Neverending Story.
The premise is that Earth's environment got scrambled and its moon destroyed when a space armada fought an evil overlord named Cherno, who was cast deep below Earth's crust. In return, beleaguered humanity gained acceptance into the alien community, and the wounded planet is honored as the host/arena location for cosmoball, a soccer-like interspecies sport followed avidly by all intelligent worlds. But a closely guarded secret is that Cherno remains active in his underground prison. Balls used in cosmoball are actually weapon-salvos the supervillain conjures that can only be neutralized by being kicked around in a stadium match.
Anton (Evgeny Romantsov), an unpopular and accident-prone human teen, is secretly a chosen-one type, infused with one of Cherno's DNA inventions, and capable of teleportation. This latent talent earns him a place on Earth's own underdog cosmoball team, proceeding to the finals for the first time. But, via the machinations of Cherno's seductive daughter (Maria Lisovaya), Cherno uses Anton to sabotage the game.
The storyline has one or two anticlimaxes too many, and bombast to match virtually any of the overblown Marvel/DC live-action adaptation. But as guilty-pleasure material, Cosmoball merits a look as offbeat, rainy-day eye candy (speaking of which, collections should know that female alien toplessness and cleavage appears, despite the obvious kid appeal of the material). Western viewers might note that the opposing alien teams dwarfing the humans are friendly competitors, a contrast to the brutal, bad-guy athletes (most of whom seemed to be homicidal Soviets) in countless Hollywood sports programmers like Rocky IV.
A strong optional curio, with a very well dubbed English-language soundtrack. (Aud: P)