Lightning in a Bottle: Critic Reviews

The music's sensational.

This remarkable concert film documents the blues legends who gathered at Radio City Music Hall in 2003 for a historic and joyous musical summit.

Features a who's who of world-wise bluesmen (and women) and newbie practitioners.

The event's musical director, Steve Jordan, marvels at one point: 'Looks like y'all hired the phone book . . . just looked up "Blues" in the Yellow Pages.'

It's hugely entertaining.

Performances both lighthearted and smokin', backstage interviews, and archival footage projected on the hall's JumboTrons create an energetic gloss of blues history.

Fuqua's film captures a night when lightning struck more than twice in the same place.

An aptly named blast from the past that manages to sizzle in the present.

Entertaining, exalting educational, uplifting -- and a total blast.

Every so often there comes a must-see movie. This one's a must-hear.

A compact, fast-paced and entirely joyful celebration.

Lightning is a joyous, toe-tapping celebration of a musical style born of sorrow.

If you know the blues, you've heard it all before. And if you don't, the film, after a promising step-by-step primer opening, won't help you.

If the movie seems at times a little thin in its chronology and scholarship, it more than makes up for that in the quality of performances that ranges from the cool fire of Angelique Kidjo to the hot smoke of B.B. King.

Comes alive with the more relaxed performances from its senior set -- men and women in their late sixties through to their late eighties -- performing the music they've lived and breathed their whole lives.

The result is pure pleasure for fans of the blues.

If you ever loved this kind of music, Lightning will bring the reasons back. If you haven't, you'll likely wonder where this has been all your life.

It is as much a lesson in musical appreciation as it is a thrilling concert.

Lightning in a Bottle is a feel-good film, ironically, for fans of the blues and a solid primer for newcomers to the sound.