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Created Sep 19, 2009 05:16PM PST • Edited Jan 09, 2014 04:05PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   A must see for the true rock fan, this awkwardly titled rockumentary should have been called Axemen since it’s an intimate portrait of three great guitar heroes, two of them certified Rock Gods.

   The movie wraps flashbacks, interviews and archival footage around a jam session with the three: Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White. From this rather chaotic structure we gain insight into the genesis, evolution and passions of each axeman. And we get to kick out the jams a few times.

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   Stream-of-conscious thoughts follow for the rest of the Summary commentary -—-

   If you love rock music then you love electric guitar and if you love electric guitar then you venerate Jimmy Page, or as he’s often referred to: Jimmy Fuckin Page. (The epithet in the middle being a sign of awe you see.) And you also love The Edge, a remarkably self-effacing rock god, notwithstanding having The Definite Article in his name.

   This is true even if – like me – you’ve never been a Zep or U2 head. Any serious rock fan nonetheless knows that both are in the pantheon of Rock Goddom. Top 5 in the case of Zep and Top 10 in the case of U2. Arguably.

   Jack White, OTOH, tries really hard and comes out with some cool stuff, especially Steady, As She Goes from his dude band The Raconteurs. But he ain’t in the same league as the Edge, who in turn is not in the same league as Jimmy Page.

   Just as the comma after Steady is a bit studied, so is White: a bow tie wearing aesthete focused on true rockology. So it’s more than a little ballsy for a guy like that – a mere Rock Demigod – to be filmed jamming with a bona fide Rock God like the Edge, let alone with Jimmy Page.

   While the Edge isn’t even Top 50 in terms of pure Axemen, he’s come up with some of the biggest guitar figures of the last 20 years. Thus it’s fitting that the first song the three play together is I Will Follow. Still, at that moment as at many others the true rock fan will find himself muttering That’s Jimmy Fuckin Page – in this case – playing U2.

   Page dominates the movie just as he has everywhere he’s played. Even when sharing the airwaves with Clapton and Hendrix, he was a top predator of axemen. Equaled perhaps but never surmounted.

   So the fact that he has to share the movie with the other two disappoints, notwithstanding that the Edge (especially) and Jack White are never less than compelling.

   White deserves enormous credit for anchoring the movie and standing his ground jamming with the others, especially during the closing number of The Weight, the great song Robbie Robertson wrote for The Band. (The Weight, The Edge, The Band. What is it with the Thes?)

   Still, no matter how solid the other two, when Page kicks into the lead of Whole Lotta Love, the competition is flat out OVER. Check ’im out starting about 45 seconds into the WikChip clip.

   Sure Jack White is reasonably versatile, given both The White Stripes and The Raconteurs. When it comes to overwhelming versatility however, Jimmy Page was session man extraordinaire in the swinging mod London of the 60s. Hell, he mentions playing guitar on the title song to Goldfinger. James Bond, James Page: two British cultural heroes.

   Oh yeah, and before founding Zeppelin, Page took over lead guitar in the Yardbirds after Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck left the group. The movie includes a kickass video of Heart Full of Soul, with a young Page damn near dancing a jig as he rips off the fuzz bomb lead line. Wow.

   And then there’s Stairway to Heaven: the biggest of all rock ballads, as beautiful a monstrosity as the art form can offer. The movie offers Page playing it a little with the Edge and White standing around him, then cuts into an extended vid of Page, Bonzo, JPJ and of course leather lunged Robert Plant kicking it out back in the day. DAMN. That’s rock n’ roll.

   He also delivers a solid extract from When the Levee Breaks, as heavy as rock songs come.

   In fact, he draws heavily from Zep IV, not just because it’s their greatest album but because Page returns in the movie back to stately Headley Grange where they recorded it. We even get a bit of Going to California.

   Whew, it’s exhausting just recounting all this. But great fun watching it. That said, leave the women and children behind unless they are true rock fans.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Page easily proves himself the most monstrously talented of the three. Highlights include him describing why he had the famous double-necked guitar created for Stairway to Heaven, showing how and why he played guitar with a bow, describing his sight reading abilities as a two-a-day session man, and even playing a theremin. That last: eerie man, eerie.

   Here’s a hoot: Jimmy Page plays air guitar while listening to a 45 of Link Wray’s Rumble. I’ll say it again: the movie shows Jimmy Page playing air guitar. That’s like seeing Michael Jordan play 5-4-3-2-1 with a wad of paper and a trashcan.

   The Edge comes across as a sonic explorer, as much an electronics tinkerer as a picker. Give him his due, he achieves some wonderful tones for U2. “Pure and Easy” as the Who once romanticized.

   White lacks the rock star presence and huge sound of the other two. However – unlike them – he’s also a singer. And he’s fashioned himself a legitimate member of Rock Royalty.

5. Male Stars Really Great 4.5

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

   The limited “cast” includes no females, other than Meg White’s brief appearance in a couple White Stripes concert appearances. I’m setting the score to Great to equalize so it doesn’t take away from the others.

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    The film does a terrific job showing how each axeman came to his instrument and found his voice. Perhaps a bit too balanced, each gets the same amount of airtime notwithstanding their relative importance.

    Thomas Tull deserves the thanks of every rock fan for putting this production together. Having executive produced The Hangover, Observe and Report, Watchmen, The Dark Knight, and 300 he could have done any passion project he wanted. Happily he chose this one.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

    Davis Guggenheim does an impressive job corralling a loose collection of clips and jams into a coherent film.

12. Play Great 4.0

13. Music Perfect 5.0

    Wow. Let’s just touch on a few highlights not yet mentioned.

    • Jimmy Page’s teen skiffle band is shown playing. This is especially enlightening to younger and non-British fans like me since skiffle was huge in Britain during the formative years of John Lennon, Jimmy Page and the rest of the British Invasion stars.
    • The Edge demonstrates one of his huge U2 leads, then turns off his amplifier to reveal a tiny little strumming sound. It’s the aural equivalent of the Wizard of Oz being revealed as “the man behind the curtain.”
    • Page talks about and demonstrates his predilection for “whisper to thunder” dynamic changes, something he employed again and again in Led Zeppelin, perhaps most famously in Stairway to Heaven.

14. Visuals Great 4.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.1

    No sex and no drugs but a whole lotta rock n’ roll.

17. Sex Innocent 1.0

18. Violence Gentle 1.0

19. Rudeness Polite 1.3

21. Reality

    Natural 1.0

    Jimmy Page is claimed to be miming to Jeff Beck’s recording in the Heart Full of Soul video. Whoops.

    Source: Wikipedia

22. Circumstantial Natural 1.0

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0