Let's be realistic.

Good concept, poorly executed.

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

It's 2003. LeBron James, Dru Joyce III, Romeo Travis, Sian Cotton, and Willie McGee are preparing to play the National Championship Game. The documentary takes a look at these five teenagers in Akron, Ohio growing up and rising up to be one of the best high school teams. They were a shoe-string unknown team playing in the AAU tournaments with teams from across the country. In 1999, they lost the championship game by two points on a final miss by LeBron. LeBron is the future NBA star dubbed the Chosen One. Dru is the undersized kid with a chip on his shoulder. Romeo is the angry addition in the sophomore year. Dru Joyce II takes over after their coach abandons them for a college job.This is more or less for fans of LeBron. It has his cooperation. It's mostly basketball with some personal revelations. The most important aspect seems to be their close-knit friendship and loyalty of belonging to the group. It has some insights and drama even for non-fans of LeBron. It doesn't really have anything too dramatic with the exception of LeBron's suspension. More than anything, this is about LeBron's nature and his connection to his home town.

More Than a Game is a sports documentary film that follows NBA superstar LeBron James and four of his teammates through the trials and tribulations of high school basketball in Akron, Ohio, and James's journey to fame. The film trailer was released in April featuring the single "Stronger" by Mary J. Blige, which she released in support of the film. It is a documentary that focuses in on 5 young basketball players - LeBron James, Dru Joyce III, Romeo Travis, Sian Cotton, Willie McGee - and their coach, Dru Joyce II, performing on an AAU team with the growing stardom of the future NBA superstar, LeBron James. Taking them through their pre-teens to high school, the film follows their incredible journey as the unknown Ohio team rises to the top of youth athletics. The moral really suggests that to win, a team has to fight until the end to achieve a goal, even if the challenge seems easy.Director Kristopher Belman examines the way that bonds are formed and tested with this profile of four high school basketball players who formed a remarkable chemistry over the years, eventually going on to play for St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, OH -- with one of them realizing their common dream of becoming an NBA superstar. LeBron James was still in high school when Sports Illustrated dubbed him "The Chosen One" and all-eyes turned toward the St. Mary-St. Vincent team. But while most cameras focused on the court, only Belman managed to capture the remarkably personal exchanges that occurred in the locker room as the team prepared for their games and celebrated their victories. And while James may have been the breakout star of the group, Belman still takes the time to offer detailed profiles of diminutive shot-sinker Little Dru, stocky Sian, and wise-beyond-his-years Willie -- the other players who formed the so-called "Fab Four." The subsequent addition of Romeo Travis necessitated the expansion of their nickname to the "Fab Five." As the adversity rises and James enters into his senior year, he faces the resentment of outsiders who would attempt to capitalize on his talent, and endures pressures that most teenagers will never know. Though the film may not delve as deep as some would prefer, More Than a Game is an inspiring documentary featuring likable youngsters, a positive message, and some exciting in-game footage

If you know or care anything about high school hoops on a national level, there's one stretch of the truth that will jump out at you near the end of this movie -- that being the assertion that St. Vincent-St. Mary is playing in a national championship game in what was the senior season for LeBron James and the rest of the "Fab 4/5". Of course, there is no national championship game for high school hoops, at least, not like there is in college. LeBron and his crew won the Division II Ohio state championship as seniors, then would have had to be voted national champs in one or more polls. And I don't remember if they were consensus national champs; since it's all done by polls, it's possible one or more polls had some other team as its national champ that season.Maybe that only means something to me because I'm a basketball fan. For everyone else it probably suffices to say that this is an entertaining film, if a bit thin on details and questionable at times in its accuracy. As basketball documentaries go, More Than A Game can't hold Hoop Dream's jock, but seeing action clips of LeBron as a youngsta make it worth the rental.One last basketball junkie point: For my tastes the film makers should have gone into more detail about the LeBron-Carmelo Anthony HS matchup. It's glossed over a bit in this film so you don't get the sense of what a battle that game was between two good teams and two future NBA stars (36-8-5 and six steals for LeBron, 34-11-2 for Carmelo). Nor is it emphasized that LeBron and St. Vincent-St. Mary lost the game.

Remembering Michael Jordan is feeling no player in basketball history could ever approach his skill and charisma. The smooth documentary More Than a Game offers the possibility that Le Bron James is everything Jordan was and maybe more. Yet it succeeds in deflecting James' glory by showing how his "Fab Five," as they called themselves at Akron's St. Vincent, St. Mary's in Ohio, overcame difficulties to become national champions.Although the documentary follows the usual arc of win, lose, win for sports stories, similar to Hoop Dreams, I had satisfaction that I witnessed a phenomenon of history—a team that survived briefly without James(who later won a court decision to be reinstated), qualified for the nationals, lost the national championship only to come back the next year victorious. Clichéd as that might be, it's interesting history. The impact of media coverage, especially the growing awareness of James's transcendent talent, is never fully explored in favor of spreading the story amongst the five star players and coach.Because James is a producer of this film, it's easy to see how it slides over the controversies such as his mother's financing a Hummer for him. There may be other more egregious acts, yet it's hard not to like the self-effacing star, even harder to discount the emotional challenges facing a coach who must coach his own son. Indeed the story of Coach Dru Joyce is every bit as interesting as that of the players, neophyte as he was to coaching basketball and with his son in the starting lineup. This is where director Kristopher Belman is at his best as he carefully reveals the difficulties such a situation brings.The sly comment about James at the end of the obligatory "what happened to whom" may be the best indicator that as manipulative as this doc may be, it has a sense of humor about a serious sports story.