Soccer is one of the world's most popular sports - possibly the most popular- and is known affectionately as "the beautiful game." Certainly it has a global presence both in terms of soccer clubs and in sheer numbers of fans worldwide, and inspires both excitement and loyalty in its fans. The Beautiful Century attempts to capture that excitement, looking back over the 100 years since FIFA (the Federation Internationale de Football Association) was founded.

The documentary is broken into four parts, each about 26 minutes long. "Origins" talks about the formation of FIFA and how the game expanded across the globe; "The Champion's Tale" focuses on the FIFA World Cups from 1930-2002; "Soccer Missionaries" takes a look at the roots of the game and how it has grown; and "Expansion and Beyond" looks at how the smaller nations and different age groups, as well as women, have made it onto the international stage of soccer play.

If you get the impression that there's some overlap between the different parts, you're right, and that's where the documentary starts showing its weaknesses. OK, so the program is organized thematically instead of chronologically; there's nothing wrong with that in itself. The problem is that the four parts aren't really very distinct, and a lot of material ends up being repeated from one part to another. Couple this with the fact that the program jumps around in time a lot, and you have a recipe for a rather muddled presentation.

There's also not a whole lot of depth here... or rather, there's no real depth where it would actually be interesting. The level of focus in the documentary is rather odd. Most of the time, the program stays on the level of generalities, never really getting into the material in depth, but then at other times we're given a lot of details about a particular team, player, or event that turns out to be fairly unimportant in the big picture.

The Beautiful Century ends up being a rather awkward production. It doesn't have enough substance to really be of interest to soccer fans, who probably already know everything that's discussed in the program; the only merit is that it does provide game footage and interviews that will pique a fan's interest. For casual soccer fans, it's very light-weight, and is suitable only for the most casual of viewings, but on the plus side, it offers some information about the global scope of the game that may be new to people who just view it as an after-school game for kids.

The DVD

Video

The 1.33:1 aspect ratio of the program is its original television broadcast ratio. The image looks fine; it's not particularly sharp or crisp, but that's not unexpected, given that a lot of the footage comes from old broadcast television footage. Overall, it looks fine.

Audio

The Dolby 5.1 soundtrack is satisfactory, offering a clean and clear listening experience.

Extras

There are no special features.

Final thoughts

The Beautiful Century provides some mildly interesting information about the history of soccer and its spread across the globe, but the material is poorly organized and often repetitive. I'll give it a mild "rent it" recommendation.