Review of It Might Get Loud (2008) by Stephen M — 23 Apr 2011

The White Stripes' Jack White, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and U2's The Edge explore the enduring appeal of the electric guitar. With White, on the one hand, bemoaning technology as a "big destroyer of emotion and truth" and The Edge, conversely, enthusing that effects units "have always pushed music forward", the opening autobiographical segments whet the appetite for what promise to be some highly entertaining differences of opinion in the group discussion phase.

Sadly, mutual respect and natural reticence take over when the three get together, and without a moderator to focus proceedings and to ask some probing questions, nothing gleaned from this portion of the film can match, say, the simple eloquence of Jimmy Page's joyful expression when he's listening to an old Link Wray or Muddy Waters record.

There's also something very stiff and perfunctory about the jamming, and the decision to end a documentary about the electric guitar with an all-acoustic rendition of The Band's The Weight felt somewhat perverse.