Early reviews of One Direction’s new movie are in.
‘One Direction: This Is Us’: The Early Reviews Are In!
Directioners should be pleased by the good word spreading about the concert film and documentary.
One Direction has brought their world domination to the big screen in their new documentary/concert film “One Direction: This Is Us,” directed by “Super Size Me” creator Morgan Spurlock. With yesterday’s big premiere in London — just days before the group’s planned appearance at Sunday’s VMAs — a handful of overseas critics got an early look at “This Is Us” and share their thoughts. Check out a sampling of what they had to say about the movie in our early review round-up below.
Read more: MTV
MTV Review: One Direction – This Is Us
Summary: This Is Us is a must see for any Directioner, giving them a once in a lifetime look at what it’s really like to hangout with their idols. The 3D element also gives it that up-close-and-personal feel, with diehard fans almost able to touch their fave member. While it is jam packed with concert footage, we would have liked to have seen even more clips of the lads’ backstage antics, as well as wanting to get to know them better. Their personal lives seemed to have been edited out of the movie, with no mention of Hazza’s romance with Taylor Swift or Zayn’s relationship with Little Mix’s Perrie – with Louis, Niall and Liam’s love-lives also absent from the final cut.
Read more: MTV UK
One Direction: This Is Us: Film Review
The British boy band sensation shares their bland and beloved brand of pop along with backstage antics in their new concert-tour doc directed by Morgan Spurlock.
The ’80s had New Kids on the Block, the ’90s had the Backstreet Boys and now boy bands are resurgent again with British group of the moment Once Direction, currently a chart-topping global pop phenom. While hardly a very incisive look at the band or its five individual singers — who are barely old enough to even have personal histories — Morgan Spurlock’s documentary One Direction: This Is Us, which will be released in dozens of cities over multiple territories, will doubtless score big for Sony. The holiday weekend should also give the film opportunity to build momentum and word of mouth in the weeks ahead as kids head back to school for the fall.
Read more: The Hollywood Reporter
Film Review: ‘One Direction: This Is Us’
Once one reaches a certain age, the procession of teen pop idols becomes a cruel reminder of the passage of time and the inevitability of death. For any non-teenager attending Morgan Spurlock’s concert documentary “One Direction: This Is Us,” intimations of mortality will be felt most strongly during the “classic cover song” section of the group’s set, wherein the boy band reaches all the way back to Blondie’s “One Way or Another” and Wheatus’ 2000 golden oldie “Teenage Dirtbag.” Yet the film’s central fivesome prove charming pallbearers throughout the film, which alternates between inspired and insipid as it hits its hagiographic marks. Directioners should show up in full force.
Read more: Variety
One Direction: This Is Us, review
This documentary is guaranteed to turn a profit, so why couldn’t Morgan Spurlock have some fun with it, asks Robbie Collin.
When I first heard that Morgan Spurlock, the documentarian, was making a film about One Direction, I assumed that he would be listening to nothing but the boyband’s music for 30 days to see if it would induce heart failure. In his 2004 film Super Size Me, Spurlock claimed that eating only food from McDonalds left him 1st 10lbs heavier, and suffering from vomiting, liver disease, mood swings and sexual dysfunction. This latest stunt would surely be enough to finish him off.
Read more: The Telegraph
The One Direction movie – This Is Us: First review
Shots of Harry Styles curly locks up close? Check. Footage of Liam Payne in his pants? Check. Zayn Malik looking brooding on camera? Check. And Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson paying pranks on the gang? Yep, it’s in the bag.
And This Is Us is all in 3D so fans will feel so close to the band that if it had smellovision you would discover Harry’s shampoo of choice.
Thanks to Super Size Me creator Morgan Spurlock understanding of 1D’s female fan-base there’s definitely only One Direction the boyband’s film is heading and that’s straight to the top of the box-office charts.
Bookmakers expect This Is Us to rake in as much as £5million in the UK alone when it is finally released next on August 29.
Read more: The Mirror
One Direction: This Is Us: Morgan Spurlock’s 1D in 3D documentary contains very little sex or drugs – review
Morgan Spurlock’s 3D documentary about One Direction has just enough grit and insight to stop it seeming like simply a glossy promotional vehicle for the boy band phenomenon.
Perhaps in deference to Richard Lester’s Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night, Spurlock includes plenty of scenes of the five band members larking about behind-the-scenes. We see them running and jumping, putting on silly disguises and leading their security minders on a merry dance.
Spurlock also makes fleeting attempts to understand just why Niall, Zayn, Liam, Harry and Louis induce such intense feelings of devotion in their teenage female fans. The fans themselves explain that One Direction “sing our feelings.” A neuroscientist pops up on screen to tell us that the band’s music triggers a deeply pleasurable release of dopamine in the band’s most devoted listeners.
Read more: The Independent
‘One Direction: This Is Us’ Film Review – Shows Simon Cowell’s Creation In Full Flight, In A Fan-Delighting Bit Of Fluff
One Direction have given us the record-breaking singles, the globe-cornering tour. Now, as for any self-respecting, 21st century pop franchise, it must be time for the access-all-areas documentary.
And so, where Bieber and Perry have stepped, so One Direction must follow.
Read more: HuffingtonPost.UK
One Direction This Is Us review: “This is not a film. It’s propaganda”
Director: Morgan Spurlock; Starring: Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson, Simon Cowell; Running time: 92 mins; Certificate: PG
One Direction further their bid for world domination with the release of documentary This Is Us. Hardcore Directioners will no doubt lap up this 90-minute trip behind the scenes with Harry, Liam, Niall, Zayn and Louis, but what about everybody else?
Super Size Me’s Morgan Spurlock might be a promising choice as director, but there’s none of that Oscar-nominated doc’s sharp wit or inventiveness on show here. Instead we get a product that’s sanitised, squeaky clean and so painfully afraid of controversy and revelation. Spurlock has railed against the man in the past, yet here he’s jumped straight into bed with him, staying rigidly on message with Simon Cowell and the Syco team.
This Is Us charts the group’s formation on The X Factor and their fast rise to arena tour superstardom. Spurlock weaves together archive footage, concert performances, backstage hijinks and talking head interviews with the group and their families. There’s even room for celebrity cameos in the form of Martin Scorsese, Chris Rock and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Read more: Digital Spy
