Anvil! the Story of Anvil: Critic Reviews

It's a hilarious, and unexpectedly moving, documentary about the greatest metal band you've probably never heard of.

The success of Anvil! The Story of Anvil lies in its ability to make you care about an enterprise you might initially have been inclined to laugh at.

A charming, touching and very funny film.

The biggest surprise is not the pervasive comedy in this compelling rockumentary. It's the poignant, even heartbreaking, moments that sneak up on you as the saga unfolds.

Now THIS is Spinal Tap.

Anvil! is one of the sweetest, funniest films I've seen this year. Also the loudest and most foulmouthed.

[A] phenomenal rockumentary.

If you're having a rough day, take solace from these middle-aged rockers, who brave untold setbacks purely because they insist on believing that some dreams never die.

A winning and surprisingly moving documentary about -- wait for it -- a struggling Canadian heavy metal band that apparently influenced a generation of hard-rockers including Metallica, Anthrax and Guns N' Roses.

If you can forget Spinal Tap (hard), it's rather touching the way these 50-year-olds still have the forged-in-fire fortitude.

The most stirring release of the year thus far.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil is a documentary about the moderate rise and long, long fall of their band, where musicians in the two other slots came and went, but Lips and Robb rocked on.

The new documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil succeeds every which way, as '80s metal nostalgia, as a twisted sort of reality-show attempt at a comeback, as an unexpectedly touching portrait of a friendship.

Gervasi has tapped into a powerful if much-overlooked truth: humanity rocks.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil can't help but evoke This Is Spinal Tap, the classic 1984 mockumentary directed by the other Rob Reiner, in terms of both sheer hair-metal ludicrousness and indignities suffered by a not-so-successful rock band on the road.

It's an affectionate portrait of performers starving for applause, achingly funny as only real life can be.

A study in the cost of pursuing a dream that's probably the wrong dream, Anvil! The Story of Anvil looks for the high notes but doesn't -- or can't -- shy away from the lows.

Very entertaining docu is amusing without being condescending, touching without straining for pathos.

The inspirational doc concentrates on the group's founders and mainstays, lifelong buds Steve 'Lips' Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner.

Cute if predictable.

An alternately humorous and heartbreaking film.

Anvil: The True Story of Anvil is only 80 minutes long, but it packs a lifetime worth of drama, setbacks and especially friendship into its brief running time.

Supplies all the rocked-out comedy and Rocky-like redemption you could want.

Anvil!'s deep kinship with Spinal Tap is more than circumstantial. Both films are, at heart, portraits of a lifelong collaboration between two musicians as dedicated as they are delusional.

An engaging account of the life and times of an obscure Canadian heavy-metal band.