Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story (2001)

As band bio-pics go, this one is a mix up. Only real fans of the band will be interested. Those mildly curious will walk away with a profound sense of "Wha..?" Def Leppard have a great history, and the fact they all started so young is almost never touched on, except for the drummer, Ric Allen. Anthony Michael Hall as Mutt Lange, who, if you go by the film, truly defined, refined, and set the course for their music. And while this may be true, Hall's performance is lackluster and yawn-inducing. All in all, I'd give this a 4 out of 10. As I previously stated, and this is no fine point, only FANS will be interested in this. I'd rather see "Song Remains the Same" with Led Zeppelin.

Now, I was never a fan of Def Leppard after Pyromania, but seeing this DVD at my local Blockbuster, I had to rent it to see how the film makers portrayed this band. Knowing the story of this band, since I was a fan of metal from the early 80's, I was truly disappointed with the outcome.The film (thankfully) really focuses on the early days of the band, when they were a straight ahead rock band, before all the commercial nonsense of "Hysteria". The story begins with the band forming and ends before the hysteria of "Hysteria". The film focuses a lot on Rick Allen's tragic car accident that took his left arm, and on the out of control Steve Clarke.First off, this film is much too short. Under 90 minutes?!? With all the tragedy that this band faced, the film should have been much longer. It also should have shown the audience what happened to Steve Clarke, a great guitar player who was battling his demons with alcohol. He deserved much more in this film than a little blurb during the end credits.The actors do a decent job when not performing on stage. Their stage performances are much too wooden. But they did mostly look like the band. It was also great to see Anthony Michael Hall again. Too bad he is now stuck doing TV movies. I always liked him as an actor.Also, the locations where they shot this did not look like England to me, and the view of the band at the height of their career just does not make the audience believe. Can you seriously think that Joe Elliot was driving a Volvo during the height of his career. Little details like this will have the fan of Def Leppard in stitches.This is the first film I have seen that VH1 has done. Living in Canada, we don't get that video channel. Hopefully, if they decide to do future films, they will be much better.If you are a Def Leppard fan, you will definitely want to see this, but may be very disappointed in the lack of attention to detail, and more importantly, the lack of quality.

Having grown up in the steel city (Sheffield) I thought this movie might be a trip down memory lane. How wrong I was. The X Files has proven that Canada can substitute for nearly all of the US, and even Russia. However this movie shows it can't replicate Sheffield and South Yorkshire. Sheffield, like Rome, is built on 7 major hills. Sheffield in this movie, like plot, was very flat. Other laughable elements include - the accents (not even vaguely close), - the 'pubs' (oh dear), - the high school (so 'american' in build I don't know where to start), - London and Sheffield became interchangeable towards the end.But my favourite bit was the cars. The production obviously had limited access to right-hand cars, with stick shift, as we drive over here. However to have the band 'sharing' a clapped-out Volvo estate, even at the peak of their success was just too funny. If the plot/characterization had been stronger I could have forgiven this. But it just wasn't.

A very good film which is very spoilt by the amazingly poor northern accents and the fact the it was all seems to be filmed in the USA with "token" stock footage of London. All the american coaches and left hand drive cars except for the odd right hand drive car when you see the bad. Well worth watching but very spoilt by lack of attention to detail!