The Sparks Brothers

'The Sparks Brothers (2021)' is a behemoth of a documentary that charts the entire, six-decades-spanning career of 'Sparks', an intermittently successful and always experimental band who've reinvented themselves more times than you could possibly imagine. Prior to hearing of this film, I'd never heard of the Mael brothers or their band; the only reason I (and I highly doubt I'm the only one) elected to watch the piece is because of its director, Edgar Wright. This directly relates to both the strength and weakness of the piece: its adamant desire to explore every single 'Sparks' album ever released. With a runtime just shy of two-and-a-half hours and a structure that basically repeats itself twenty-five times, it certainly isn't the most audience friendly of affairs. This would imply that its target audience is almost exclusively people already familiar with and fond of the band's work, but this actually isn't the case - at least, not as obviously as it may seem. See, the documentary doesn't really go into any depth when it comes to its eponymous brothers, their musical process or how they perceive the events the movie depicts. Instead, it essentially focuses on the reception of their music, conveyed primarily via an impressively eclectic array of talking heads who wax lyrical about the under-appreciated brilliance of 'Sparks'. Therefore, fans of the band will likely already be familiar with most of the stuff that the movie covers. At the same time, newbies like myself are likely to feel slightly overwhelmed at the amount of surface-level information that the flick throws at its viewers. After a certain point, it all starts to blend into itself and wash over you to an extent. Despite this issue, the movie is still quite a bit of fun. Sure, it starts to run out of steam at points, but it often shakes things up just enough to feel fresh - much like the Mael brothers themselves. Though its presentation is mostly rather standard (albeit impressive), it does have a cheeky sensibility to it and imbues many of its more expected elements with some subtle yet successful humour. The enthusiasm of everyone on screen is also evident and infectious. Sadly, I can't say that I recall more than a couple of 'Sparks' songs now and they play for pretty much the entire affair. This is likely a testament to the eclectic nature of their discography, which is consistently inconsistent in terms of style and tone. Still, the music is enjoyable, despite not being all that memorable. Ultimately, this documentary is slightly too long and almost too comprehensive for its own good, yet it has quite a bit of charm to it and remains entertaining pretty much for its entire duration. It's a solid effort. 7/10.

At 2h 21m this is a long documentary but while some reviews I've seen say it's too long I thought it flew by and really enjoyed the whole film. I've never heard any of Sparks music but loved hearing their songs and learning about their 50 year history, it's amazing seeing who they've influenced and how they've grown and evolved. When it comes to criticisms I will say that after a while the documentary does begin to feel somewhat one note, always just talking heads telling us of how much they love the band and how they've been influenced followed by a bit of music, while this is disrupted sometimes by short animations it does feel very similar, there's also never really much criticism of the band, while I do love the music from what I've heard I'd still appreciate seeing differing views on the subject. To conclude The Sparks Brothers is an entertaining and interesting documentary with a few flaws that ends up as a high 7/10.

"How can a band be successful, underrated, hugely influential, and overlooked all at the same time?" Edgar Wright (director)

Although the cult art-pop band Sparks has been playing its idiosyncratic music for fifty years, you may never have heard about the two brothers or their music. Be prepared to remember them forever after seeing Edgar Wright's loving and comprehensive documentary covering their zany years of performance.

The two boys, Ron and Russ Mael, were born in California with the creative influence of the Beach Boys but a definite affinity for Brit bad boys like the Beatles and The Stones and touches of Queen. In fact, Ron and Russell Mael may have been a major influence on British synthpop.

Wright skillfully shows their emerging theatrics of Ron's culturally-sharp lyrics and Russell's stagey falsetto gyrations evocative of Mick and Freddie. They have their career careening from high on the charts to being absent from them, but never stopping the two from inventing themselves over and over again.

If you don't believe me, listen to persuasive talking heads who know what they're talking about, like Duran Duran, Weird Al Yankovic, Patton Oswalt, Sonic Youth, et al. However, just listen to their sometimes-inscrutable lyrics and watch Russell gyrate around the implacable Ron, and you will experience music in all its forms, wild and expressive.

As Ringo was alleged to say while watching Top of the Pops, "Marc Bolan is on the tele playing a song with Adolph Hitler" (Ron wore a Hitler-like stache much of the time). In the course of their half century, they went from glam-rock to orchestral art-pop to their take on Sgt Pepper and everything in between. It's exhausting just to try to catalogue their phases.

In Theaters.

I've been a fan of Sparks for over 10 years now and just went I thought I knew everything there was to know about them, Edgar Wright beautifully illustrates their 5 decade career span. It's an excellent glimpse into their creative process with so much unseen footage and storytelling from Ron and Russell.

Great job to all involved.

This was superbly made, very funny, and surprisingly uplifting.

I've watched a lot of music documentaries that have interesting content but pretty boring presentation, and so to have one come along that's this entertaining and this well edited was a real treat.

Sparks have had an incredibly interesting history to the point where you could use stock standard documentary techniques and still make something watchable, but Wright's passion for this duo really shines through and makes for a documentary that will make any viewer see the weird, funny and captivating appeal of Sparks.

It makes me feel like I've got a lot of catching up to do, as I'd only listened to four Sparks albums before watching this, and there are at least several more covered here that I feel I should check out.

Only complaint I'd have is that it gets a little long winded near the end, with an epilogue that stretches on forever, with so many points where you think it's about to finish but doesn't. It's like the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ending but for documentaries.

Maybe Wright just didn't want to finish making this movie about a band he clearly loves, so for that I can't blame him too much.