Creation Stories

"I've been a fan of Oasis for a long time, and their music, so when the trailer came out, I wanted to see this semi-autobiographical film about Oasis manager Alan McGee. Not surprisingly, the beginning of the film portrays the rebellious behavior of an ordinary family and different experiences when traveling with friends to different places. Regardless of how McGee affirmed his bands, there are two scenes that truly showcase his success. First, he was always the one finding stages for the band in front of others. Second, since he was a rebel, he stuck to his own beliefs and style. Of course, the final quote, 'Don't try to change the river's course; learn to build bridges and communicate so that others understand,' really teaches us how to change our prejudices.

I find it interesting that Allan McGee has completely changed the narrative of his upbringing and early life. The large house he lived in was in a middle class area of Glasgow. His parents and family didn't speak rough Glaswegian (although in the film it appeared by their accents they were from Edinburgh!). No mention of the 6 week family holidays to California when he was a teenager?? Or the money his Dad loaned him to start Creation? The scene where his father was wearing Masonic regalia in the house ie out with a Masonic meeting, would never have happened. Let's just say the amount of artistic license used is nearly as big as Allan's over inflated ego. A megalomaniac in the right place at the right time. No more, no less. Judge for yourself the kind of person he is. I note they don't do go into much detail regarding the son he never acknowledged until the boy was a man. As for the actual film, much like the book, a jumpy, cobbled together tale of anecdotes to add to the self importance of Allan McGee. If you didn't know the Creation story you might think you were watching an Irvine Welch black comedy...

This should have been a great movie but it's just a bit of a mess. A great story with the best bits skipped over pretty quickly. Screamadelica was Creations first big thing but was lucky if it got a minute's mention. The accents were pretty terrible too, I'm sure there's better suited actors to play JAMC, at least use Scottish ones, same with the Gallaghers, very poor choices. Still, at least the music was good. Probably would've made a better six part tv series than cramming McGee's eventful life into a movie.

Creation Stories is by no means a classic but it really is a fun movie movie that has rewatchable qualities. It's a bit messy and fast paced, hard to form any emotional attachments, but its definitely not a bad film. The music is great, it is visually great, but it seems like an hour long trailer for the movie.

If you empty the bins of the editing suites of every music film for the last twenty years, put it in a blender with Irvine Welsh's last few terrible books, this is what you end up with. It's a terrible shame as theres a legitimate story to be told and some very good actors wasted (and Nick Moran should definitely stick to acting - his Malcolm McLaren impression is superb but truly he couldn't direct traffic). This film is a mess: a horrible cliche soup of strung-together anecdotes and derivative snapshots with no structure or shape. Does for Creation Records what 'Cats' did for cats.