Oscar-nominated director Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) helms ONE DIRECTION: THIS IS US, a 3D concert documentary that shows the 1D guys -- Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson -- on their first big international concert tour. In between on-stage sets of 1D performing everywhere from Madison Square Garden to Japan, Germany, France, Spain, Scandinavia, and back home at London's O2 Arena, the film chronicles their rise to superstardom -- from their middle-class beginnings to the fateful day producer Simon Cowellput them together on the British talent show The X Factor.
Review: Common Sense Media
As Zayn admits in one scene, yeah, One Direction "is a boy band, but it's a cool boy band." The five guys don't try to deny that they were completely manufactured by the music and marketing genius that is Cowell, but they also stand by their actual vocal talents. They're not just good-looking blokes Cowell saw walking down the street: They were already on a talent show, proving they could actually sing. And the guys, seemingly humbled by their remarkable near-overnight success, also acknowledge that they aren't amazing dancers (like Usher and Justin Bieber) or prolific songwriters (like Harry's ex, Taylor Swift).
What One Direction is good at is harmonizing and making even the youngest of fans (usually girls) squeal with excitement ... like that other English boy band that started out singing pop ditties. The mates are ridiculously charming, and, despite their tattoos, are clean cut enough to be even a single-digit-aged girl's first celebrity crush. Although the film does explore the guys' home lives, there aren't any huge emotional revelations like in Katy Perry's film. Sure, there's much more to these guys than what's included here (for example, Zayn recently got engaged), but for a starter look at how they went from singing in their showers to selling out stadium arenas, This Is Us is as catchy and surface-cute as the band's songs.
Review: The Guardian
Morgan Spurlock's name and quizzical face are associated with personal, satirical documentaries, most famously his Super Size Me assault on McDonald's. There is nothing comparable in his bland, colourless movie about One Direction, the boy band put together by Simon Cowell after the five had auditioned separately for The X Factor. Cowell himself is the film's producer, and there isn't a single spontaneous moment to be had, as the lads tour the world, pushing their way through crowds of shouting girls to strut their conventional stuff in identical arenas before hysterical audiences that are not just mainly female but exclusively so. Don't they have any gay fans?
There's no sex, drugs, swearing, smoking, or squabbling, just rock'n'roll of an indifferent kind, a little contrived rebelliousness against their good-natured security staff and some staged meetings with their crying mums, grateful dads and proud nans. During an unlikely hike through a Swedish forest, the quintet sit around a campfire like good Boy Scouts, contemplating the future and declaring they'll always be best mates. This is the rock revolution reduced to the level of the Eurovision Song Contest.
_____________________________________________________________________
A One Direction concert movie directed by Morgan "Super Size Me" Spurlock? Does he experimentally listen to nothing but One Direction for a year? Well, there's nothing subversive about this film. We get a single, wacky shot of a neuroscientist explaining their effect on fans' brains, and the band's hidden-camera stunts and pranks in public are mostly relegated to the final credits. I suspect a previous, wackier idea for the film was ditched in favour of a slick promotional video about their jaw-dropping global tour, but I also have to admit that this is a rather watchable record of a phenomenon. Strangely, it looks like a modified version of the personal "backstory" segment on The X Factor, showing them in rehearsal, backstage, on stage or at home with the mums and dads, dreaming about fame – only now we have come out the other side: the dream has come true, on an unimaginably vast scale. The boys are cheerful, likable and sane, although perhaps the much-discussed "pressures" will only come to bear once their fortunes wane, or solo albums are discussed. The question of their personal lives – single or attached, gay or straight – is off the agenda because their real relationship is with the fans, and there is no discussion of who might be the breakout personality, like Robbie Williams. There are cameo appearances from Martin Scorsese, Chris Rock and our own Alexis Petridis, although Harry Styles's acquaintance with author and philosopher Alain de Botton is not discussed. That would need to be a separate, nuanced film of its own.
My Review :) :
Ofcourse I'm a big fan of One Direction, so maybe my review isn't a realistic review. When I watched the movie I couldn't stop smiling, from the very beginning to the very end. The most you see is probably from their Take Me Home Tour. Because I didn't got tickets (sad me...) was this an amazing experience. The makers of the movie did use a lot of special effects and little animated things flying around. in the beginning I wasn't sure if I liked it but later in the movie I though that it is an amazing thing they did.
