And then Ben said:
It might've gotten louder as far as I'm concerned. I enjoyed It Might Get Loud but the film doesn't really deliver the goods. Ostensibly a document of a summit meeting of three well respected and highly influential guitar players from three different generations, the meeting happens but the three hardly reach the summit together. There is actually very little footage of the three of them in the same room and even less of them making music together in it. What little music they do make together is fine enough but it's not an especially inspired session.
Had they been given a chance to hang out together for a while without the cameras focused on them, jam a bit, rehearse this and that, get to know each other as people a little too, have a beer away from the bright lights and the film crew... But it is all too obvious that none of this took place. It's not that they appear tense as individuals or out of sorts as musicians. It's that they simply have not had any time to work up to the point of hitting the massive groove.
Why there is so little footage of the three of them together is a mystery, but the rest of the film tracks them as independent artists, providing impressionistic snapshots of their respective biographies and aesthetic principles. All of this is loosly organized around an even more vague Platonic idea of what it means to be a guitar player. I suppose this is supposed to become evident by way of synergistic connections, themselves achieved by the editing. I can't say this big picture ever came into view for me.
Still, there are some lovely moments in the film simply due to the high profile reputations of the three musicians. Watching The Edge and Jack White both grin from ear to ear as Jimmy Page stands four feet in front of them and starts cranking out Whole Lotta Love for their personal edification, you have to grin from ear to ear yourself. Plus there is some very cool archival footage, heartfelt introspection and some wistful nostalgia that seems deserved. The film definitely has a heart. What it's lacking is real guts, that place deep down where the music comes from.
The trailer:
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