Generation Iron

A documentary that follows top bodybuilders as they train to compete in the Mr. Olympia competition. The trains of bodybuilding and righteousness can't be stopped and their movement brings about reactive forces in the people they affect. The cinematography is stark and bare, with only the soundtrack adding some effect. Other than that, it was an okay film, and I would recommend that people watch it. It's an amazing work and everything I had hoped for. From an artistic standpoint, it holds its own. With good narration from all involved, I have to give this one a final and well deserved rating of 7 out of 10, so check it out now.

First off, I must say that this movie is not very entertaining. I had to watch this movie in three sittings because I could only make it through about 30 minutes without busting out my iPad and surfing the net. It does not capture your attention and bring you on a journey like Pumping Iron did.

I lift regularly and get into bodybuilding every few years so I wanted to check this out. The last time I was into it Ronnie Coleman and Jay Cutler were having their rivalry so it was good to see who the current generation of guys are but really that was about all this movie was good for. It wasn't really entertaining. To be honest, it seems like they tried to cover too many guys and there wasn't enough time to really build a story. Obviously the showdown is between Heath and Kai but not much extra time is devoted to it. Maybe if they took a cue from Pumping Iron where 80% of the movie was about Lou vs. Arnold, they could have had something good here as Kai and Heath seem so different. I did really like Kai after seeing this film. The dude looks like a beast but to see him that he eats at home with chopsticks, does performance art on the streets and in the subways and paints really impressed me. He is definitely a renaissance man.

I agree with the other reviews here that gripe about the lack of steroid coverage. The movie is not an expose so I get why they didn't say much but when you have Heath claiming that only the bodybuilding community knows how to build muscle while losing fat and the blonde bald guy in Tampa saying the same sort of stuff, it seems the director should have called them out on it.

Instead you get a shot of a syringe in a dorm room fridge with Mickey Rourke saying that everyone refused to talk about GH and steroids and then Arnold saying that the reason no one is aesthetic anymore is because there no just using roids like back in the day but a lot of other drugs which allows people to get really oversized and super shredded. Other than that, nothing much else is said.

Bottom line: Only watch if you are into bodybuilding. Even then you'll get bored but it is still pretty interesting. 5/10

I have never owned dumbbells, I haven't done a push up in years, and going to the gym for more than two days in a row has always seemed impossible to me. Still, I have always found really fascinating the fact that some men are willing to go through all sorts of sacrifices and physical tortures just for the sake of getting bigger.

The movie takes us on a journey alongside several bodybuilders who are training to participate and become the next Mr Olympia, which is the maximum price in the sport. For a person who knew absolutely nothing about the guys portrayed in the documentary, I was actually surprised to see some of them doing so well and driving Bentleys and Mercedes cars. I guess that the sport and the interest of sponsors has evolved a lot since the eighties when my cousin had bodybuilding magazines with Lee Haney on the cover or the times when the great Arnold was given a 1000 dollars check in prize money. What hasn't changed is the determination to be bigger, leaner, and more muscular than any other man on the planet. They had ridiculous looking bodies then, it's even worse now.

The one thing that this documentary fails to answer is why they do all this in the first place? Are they the most egotistical and vain people on earth? Are they trying to prove something, to escape something, or are they just another genre of athletes who happen to like bodybuilding like I could like table tennis, or karate? I still haven't got a clue…

In any case, I sort of enjoyed it even though I could not care less about the subject. So whether or not you have an interest in this sport or way of life, it should make for a good enough watch.

The look of the modern day bodybuilder is not attractive to me at all. Too big, too cut, too tan, just too much of a good thing to the point where it becomes a bad thing. I never understood why in the world anyone would want to pump themselves up into something that huge. This documentary does a really good job in showing the human side behind such an extreme sport. It chronicles the journey of a handful of Mr.Olympia hopefuls and why they do it.

You get to see pieces of their lives, the way they prep, they way they interact with their families if they have them, or how they spend time on their own if they don't. The contrast between all these men defies the bodybuilder stereotype. One is a painter (a damn good one at that) in his free time and sort of a philosopher, the other is no-nonsense and uses science lab equipment to track and map out his progress, etc. Everyone has a story and it's nice to see a human side to the sport, when the contenders all have a physique that separates them from most of the population. The whole reason behind those seemingly ridiculous poses and the tan is explained too in a sensible way.

It's an interesting peek in an industry that's not very mainstream. The more controversial topics like steroids are barely touched upon, and I liked that. This documentary is about the people more than anything. Mickey Rourke's narration is very fitting as well.

It seems like people are hating on this title because they didn't all admit to using steroids or even touch on it for more than 5 minutes. If you even had any expectation for them to cover that whatsoever (I was surprised they did)...you're a lost cause. Same reason a documentary on car racing doesn't spend any time discussing car modifications and instead focuses on the lives of the drivers and what led them to racing. I don't have words for the people that rated the film poorly because steroids were not discussed.

It goes to show the ignorance of some people watching documentaries on things they are not passionate about. These guys basically live in the gym, force feed themselves every hour and have to fund or rely on volunteers to get to the top.