Becoming Led Zeppelin: an 'exhilarating' documentary

Led Zeppelin were, for a time, "the world's biggest band", and at long last we have an "official documentary" about them, said James Mottram in NME. Directed by Bernard MacMahon, the film interweaves archive footage with interviews with Zep's three surviving members: Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page, the guitarist who forged the band from the ashes of his previous outfit, The Yardbirds.

There are also "previously unheard musings" from John Bonham, who died in 1980, which make him feel present too. As per the title, the film focuses on the band's inception, and it is "forensic" when it comes to pre-Zep moments, with explorations of the band members' childhoods and early influences – even if it is "frustrating" that the narrative stops before "Stairway to Heaven".

"It is worth making an effort to catch" this documentary in a cinema, to fully appreciate the "sheer immensity of the sound that comes roaring out of the big speakers" when the band plays – "a shuddering assault of electric blues that has lost none of its bone-rattling" power over the decades, said Neil McCormick in The Daily Telegraph. But this is an authorised take, and it's a pity that it avoids Led Zeppelin's "nearly mythic destructive arc". This was a band, after all, "with a reputation for Satanic darkness, sexual abuse and violent aggression", and which set "a wildly decadent template for showbusiness hedonism". In the end, I found the film a bit dry and dishonest.

It's certainly a "rose-coloured" look back, said Jem Aswad in Variety: nothing is said, for instance, about the band members' "abominable treatment of women". But it's still "an exhilarating portrait" of one of the most exciting groups in rock history, and it channels the band's energy "beautifully".