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.

Bodybuilding is fascinating. There's an unspoken camaraderie among those who eat, live and breathe bodybuilding.

Just like in Pumping Iron, the champion, Phil Heath is depicted as the villain and like Lou Ferrigno, Kai is the hardworking underdog.

Ben Pakulski is sort of the "Ivan Drago" of this docudrama. Dennis Wolf has a particularly awkward comedic scene and Roelly Winklaar is absolutely hilarious.

I am so glad the director, Vlad Yudin did not show Branch Warren shouting swear words and throwing weights.

The plot is really all about Kai vs Phil. To people unfamiliar to bodybuilding, the footage of the other bodybuilders can seem out of place since the audience doesn't get to form any type of connection with them.

They do touch on anabolic steroids but it is very limited. "Bigger, Faster, Stronger" is a better documentary for that but it is nice that they do mention it instead of ignoring the elephant in the room.

I follow bodybuilding very closely so a lot of the content seems redundant, but I still gave this a ten just because I love bodybuilding. It's great to see that somebody is at least trying to break it out of it's shell and I support that 100% percent.

Bodybuilding is such a niche market and outsiders have such a close-minded opinion of it that I highly doubt this film will make much of an impact but I sincerely thank Vlad Yudin for the effort.

P.S. It was quite amusing seeing some of the gigantic audience members trying to get comfortable in the seemingly tiny movie theater seats.

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.

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

Interesting look into how things have changed in the world of bodybuilding since the cult classic Pumping Iron came out. Overall, the film was well shot and edited with a fairly in-depth look at some Mr. Olympia hopefuls. Overall the movie is more of a commercial for bodybuilding than it is a balanced documentary. However, it was definitely worth watching.

The elephant in the room is the fact that genetics, nutrition, and exercise science haven't changed enough over the past 30 years to make these guys look like something out of a comic book. They are taking steroids....lots of them. There is a plethora of medical evidence that steroids cause deleterious effects on the body, which the film acknowledges. One could argue that all professional athletes are using them, but bodybuilding is different. You HAVE to use steroids in order to compete, and there is no real effort to prevent there use. As a physician and a longtime weightlifter it pains me to see so many people pursing this hobby/sport at the expensive of their health. Most of it boils down to money for advertising and supplements.

Overall, an entertaining movie, but a painful reminder of what bodybuilding has become.