‘Welcome to Wrexham’ gets an assist from Ryan Reynolds but still doesn’t score

The main problem is that everything about the exercise feels so conspicuously manufactured — less the product of inspiration than something that agents cooked up over drinks — beginning with the decision to film each part of the process for the purpose of turning it into a TV show.

Reynolds and the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” star’s earnest “We’re just doing this because we love the communal nature of sports” blather would sound more convincing if these Hollywood figures weren’t concocting entertainment (admittedly of a relatively inexpensive variety) around their endeavors.

“Wrexham” also self-consciously depicts itself, as Reynolds overtly describes it, as “an underdog story,” with these new owners hoping to turn the struggling franchise into a winner and earn the team promotion into the higher tiers of the English soccer league. The amount of time spent explaining how all that works is necessary, perhaps, but every bit as exciting as that sounds.

What’s left, then, is a juggling of multiple elements, alternating between the stars, up-close-and-personal stories about individual players and introductions to certain parts of the town’s blue-collar fan base.