First: The Official Film of the London 2012 Olympic Games

The filmed record of the 2012 Olympics begins like no other I have seen: not with the location, not with the spectacle of the opening ceremonies, but with images of a dozen first-time competitors working out for their sports, while their voices and the voices of those near to them talk about how they came to be Olympians. As the film proceeds, we see the torchbearers and the people waving their national flags and hear the roar of the crowd in the background; still we hear their voices, speaking calmly yet passionately of themselves. We see them in their events, we see the well remembered Olympians, like Usain Bolt, we are constantly in view of these twelve people, their achievements, and who they are.

If you've read my comments on the other Olympics movies I've seen, you may recall that I thought the fiim makers lost sight of what these games mean after the tragedy of the 1972 Olympics. Director Caroline Rowland and her editors, Sim Evan-Jones, Alan Levy, and Chris Petcher, show the audience what it means to these athletes.

I was really looking forward to seeing this film having enjoyed a tremendous Olyimpics across the summer. I hoped this film would be a fun reminder of everything great about the success Team GB had on our home ground. How wrong and gutted was I. This film is so boring the structure is all over the place. It's like the director has no idea what she actually wants to say with the film. Somehow she has managed edit the spirit of the games completely out of the story and created an entirely boring and pretentious film. People going to see this hoping to be reminded of what a great achievement the games were will be hugely disappointed....spend your money on the BBC bluray of the coverage it will be a far more pleasurable experience.

They decided to call this First they might as well have called it Last as this is where it belongs in the world ranking of sports documentaries. I will certainly not be wasting my time or money going to see any of this director's future work if anyone is dumb enough to finance it.

They switch from one story line to the next so quickly it's hard to follow what's going on. Also, they show the actual event for maybe 15-30secs at a time, with background music playing, and you don't get that feeling of the competition and the olympics.

I was really excited to see this film. While it is beautifully photographed (the sound mixing is also excellent), the overall narrative is a total mess. If the production quality weren't so high, my rating would've probably been a 2 or 3/10. The main issues are the following:

1. For such great footage, it's a real shame there wasn't more attention placed on story. They never set up the stakes for each of the athletes leading up to their event. Many of them have no conflict whatsoever and them winning the gold is basically a foregone conclusion. This is often fun to watch, but it's not dramatic at all. Shockingly enough for what should be an exciting sports film, it becomes really boring at times.

2. It takes on too many characters. Focusing on 12 characters is way too much and doesn't give the viewer adequate time to get to know any of them with any real detail. They would've been far better off focusing on 3, maybe 4 people max.

3. It profiles some sports and some athletes that just aren't interesting at all. Some of the personalities are a total dud and their segments should've been cut. And as for events...I'm sorry but olympic shooting is just not exciting. Standing still and firing a gun at a static target is about as unathletic as it gets, particularly when you're trying to capture the greatest global sporting event held across a 4 year period.

4. It's dramatically overscored. Wayyy too much music attempting to stylize the film. Why not just focus on telling a story and not have random pop music editorializing each and every emotion?

5. Interview subjects are not on camera 99% of the time. Their voices are merely heard underneath images, which never lets you get to know the people or feel any emotion for them. The entire film is edited together like a music video. In fact the interviews with the cast after the film before the credits start contains some of the best stuff. It's shocking how they chose to omit this.

As a criterion fan, I found this on the channel and decided it would have to be good. It's criterion. Considered going all the way through the olympics film collection of the last 100 years, but this put me off. The footage that Caroline Rowland has is excellent and it really did bring me back to the 2012 Olympics, however, this movie was absolutely ruined in post. There isn't enough consistent time to view an athlete. It was decided you would show 4 minutes of background of an athlete 1 hour before the athlete comes back on and their competing for a medal. Some of the sports were rather unique and I was curious to learn more, but that message wasn't conveyed well. All in all, this movie isn't that terrible, but there are other things you can watch with the hour and forty nine minutes instead.