Contains nothing you couldn’t get from Wikipedia or YouTube: Netflix’s Pelé reviewed

Pelé is a two-hour documentary about the great Brazilian footballer — the greatest footballer ever, some would say — who played in four World Cups (a record) and was one of the first global sporting superstars. But while there is plenty of footage showing his astonishing talent, if you’re interested in what made him tick, or what his life was like off the pitch, or how adulation might ultimately mess with your head, then move on, nothing to see here. Or, to put it another way, if, like me, you’re the sort of person who goes straight to ‘Personal life’ whenever you look someone up on Wikipedia, it’s as if that section has been excised. However, if you are not that sort of person, you may come away more satisfied and less bored.

Directed by David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas, and executive produced by Kevin Macdonald, this story, in as much as there is one, is conventionally told with archive footage, dramatic music and talking heads, including Pelé himself, now 80. You don’t have to enjoy sport to enjoy a sports film. Asif Kapadia’s Senna and Maradona are masterclasses in what it is to go after the soul of your subject. Damned United, about Brian Clough, with a screenplay by Peter Morgan and directed by Tom Hooper, included almost no football at all (always a relief). But I don’t know what you’d get from this that you wouldn’t get from watching a compilation of clips on YouTube. If you’re of that mind.

The narrative is chronological, beginning with Pelé’s childhood. He was born into poverty and his father was a footballer, but it wasn’t lucrative back then, and Pelé had to work as a shoeshine boy to bring in extra.