Compare Underland vs Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger

The three central explorers are compelling, but the short runtime keeps their histories, motivations, and work from receiving the depth many critics wanted.

The brothers’ gradual softening toward each other is one of the film’s most affecting arcs, moving from awkward rehearsals to visible affection and a joint interview.

The sparse spoken material can be calm and evocative, but the poetic voiceover divides opinion. Some find it transporting; others think the images would be stronger without it.

The brothers’ revived banter is a highlight, with quick jokes and affectionate sparring giving the film much of its comic personality.

The film moves among awe, melancholy, danger, hope, and myth-making while maintaining a coherent meditative atmosphere. Its ability to feel intimate and grand at once is a notable strength.

The film’s unusually soft, peace-and-love tone is a deliberate break from Oasis’s combative image. One critic finds that coziness a little strange, even while acknowledging the brothers’ familiar wit.

The conclusion reinforces the idea that all life is connected, which works powerfully for some viewers. Others found it conventional or visually weaker and felt the film never fully resolved its many ideas.

The closing stretch is generally satisfying because it leaves the brothers visibly closer and the audience on a high, although one reviewer would have preferred the title song as the final musical statement.

At 79 minutes, the film often feels brisk and well judged, but several critics wanted more time with its three central journeys. Its compactness prevents drag while also leaving some discoveries underdeveloped.

The two-hour length works for committed fans but draws criticism from casual viewers, especially when fan interviews repeat similar emotional beats. One reviewer felt the film could have been closer to 90 minutes.

Petit’s direction is visually confident, sensorial, and unusually ambitious for a documentary adaptation. He succeeds at creating wonder, though the three-part structure sometimes limits depth and cohesion.

Will Lovelace and Dylan Southern are widely praised for translating the reunion tour into an immersive cinema experience while keeping the brothers’ reconciliation and fan stories emotionally legible.

The basic journeys are easy to follow, but the film sometimes raises more questions than it answers and does not always explain why the scientific work matters. Its thematic connections can feel suggestive rather than fully argued.

One recurring weakness is explanatory clarity: the film communicates the emotional result of the reunion far better than the practical reasons the brothers reconciled or the details of what changed.

The three underground journeys create an ambitious, often absorbing meditation on human curiosity and deep time. The structure can feel scattered or light on development, especially when it leaves a compelling thread just as it gains momentum.

The central reunion and fan story is often praised as moving, redemptive, and well constructed, but this is also the film’s biggest recurring weakness: many reviewers wanted far more about the 2009 split, the years apart, and the mechanics of reconciliation.

As an experimental documentary about hidden worlds, it delivers striking images, intriguing questions, and a distinctive mood. Viewers seeking definitive answers or a traditional explanatory structure may be less satisfied.

As a concert film and rock documentary, the film earns very strong marks for spectacle, music, and feeling. The main genre-level criticism is that it sometimes behaves more like a celebratory tour film than a probing documentary.

Brief archival material is used sparingly within connective montages, adding historical texture without interrupting the film’s flow.

Archival material is used to bridge the 2009 breakup and the 2025 reunion, with reviewers praising the way old and new footage is blended into the film’s larger emotional timeline.

The film stands out as an experimental, style-forward documentary adaptation with a distinctive voice. Its blend of myth, science, observation, and sensory immersion feels unlike conventional nature or history documentaries.

The structure is praised for misdirecting expectations away from a conventional backstage exposé and toward a broader story about fandom, healing, and what the music means to people.

The 79-minute journey is generally brisk and absorbing, but the rhythm becomes uneven when the film jumps away from its most compelling sections. Some critics praised the restraint, while others wanted longer, more sustained immersion.

Pacing is one of the more divided areas. Some find the film light, propulsive, and never boring, while others say repeated fan stories and post-Cardiff concert patterns make the middle and later sections drag.

The idea that everything is interconnected gives the film a clear, memorable center. Its strongest sequences connect past actions, present choices, and what future generations will inherit.

The film’s message of forgiveness, reconciliation, collective joy, and music as a unifying force resonates strongly with most reviewers. A few find the religious framing and brotherly-love emphasis overly sentimental or too neatly packaged.

The cross-cutting often creates elegant visual and thematic links among Mexico, Las Vegas, and Canada. Some critics found the transitions seamless, while others felt the constant switching weakened immersion in each individual story.

Editing is often praised as subtle, snappy, and effective at moving between eras, cities, performers, and fans. Some reviewers push back when the cut leans too heavily on crying crowds or makes later concerts feel repetitive.

The most dangerous cave and storm-drain passages create genuine tension, with the Las Vegas section frequently singled out as especially gripping.

The rehearsal-room uncertainty and first Cardiff show retain real tension even though viewers know the tour succeeded, giving the early film an unusually strong sense of jeopardy for a concert documentary.

The strongest passages inspire awe, unease, melancholy, and a humbling sense of humanity’s small place in time. Ancient handprints, hidden lives, and uncertain scientific quests give the film lasting emotional weight.

Emotional response is the clearest consensus strength: critics describe tears, goosebumps, catharsis, euphoria, and a powerful sense of communal release throughout the film.

The film draws rich connections among archaeology, poverty, science, ecology, mortality, and deep time. Its philosophical reach is compelling, though some critics found the narration shallower than the subject deserved.

The film finds depth in music as community, escape, memory, healing, and intergenerational connection. Several reviewers see those ideas as more important than the mechanics of the Gallagher feud itself.

The three subjects explain their goals, risks, and motivations with clarity and sincerity. Their own words often carry more weight than the film’s poetic interludes.

The first joint Liam-Noel interview in decades is frequently praised as funny, warm, candid, or moving. The recurring complaint is that the film does not push the brothers hard enough on how the feud ended or why the reunion happened.

The underground photography is the film’s clearest triumph, turning caves, storm drains, laboratories, roots, and debris into haunting, otherworldly images. Limited light and close detail make the hidden Earth feel both intimate and immense.

Reviewers repeatedly praise the concert photography for balancing stadium scale with intimate faces, using close-ups and huge crowd shots to make the reunion feel both massive and personal.

The Yucatán passages treat Mayan history, sacred caves, ancestry, and ancient markings with curiosity and respect. This thread is one of the film’s strongest links between personal identity and deep time.

The documentary is praised for showing Oasis as a working-class Manchester phenomenon that now reaches across ages, nationalities, and generations, while also touching on the band’s Irish roots.

The scientific concepts are presented in accessible, beginner-friendly terms without reducing the film’s philosophical ambition. Most viewers can follow the ideas even without specialist knowledge.

One review explicitly treats the brothers’ heavy profanity as part of the fun, finding their foul-mouthed irreverence hilariously entertaining rather than distracting.

The writing ranges from carefully composed and evocative to overly rhetorical. Its best lines clarify the film’s interconnected themes, while weaker passages feel strained or too eager to explain.

The written structure supports a clear forgiveness-and-reconciliation theme, but at least one critic finds the sermon material too scripted and heavy-handed.

The film’s unusual visual and philosophical qualities prompted near-masterpiece comparisons, though explanatory gaps kept some critics from embracing it completely.

Critical reception is presented as overwhelmingly positive, with the film repeatedly described as moving, nostalgic, and technically accomplished even when critics want more depth.

The film can draw in viewers who know little about caves, dark matter, or underground exploration through striking imagery and accessible human stories. Its meditative style will appeal most to audiences comfortable with unanswered questions.

The film lands most strongly with Oasis devotees and reunion-tour attendees, but several critics say its crowd energy can also win over agnostics. A minority warn that non-fans and casual listeners may tire of the sentiment, repetition, or long setlist.

The film offers a visually absorbing, thought-provoking experience rather than a conventional fact-heavy documentary. It is especially rewarding for viewers drawn to unknown places, science, and atmospheric filmmaking.

Most reviewers find the film highly entertaining, especially in a theater, thanks to the music, humor, scale, and crowd energy. Even several mixed reviews still describe it as exciting or enjoyable.

The film sustains a striking, hypnotic aesthetic that blends documentary observation with poetic and science-fiction-like imagery. Even less enthusiastic critics found the subterranean worlds visually arresting.

The visual approach favors large-format spectacle, expressive crowd imagery, and polished concert photography. Most reviewers love the scale, though one critic thinks the slickness sometimes tips into corporate polish.

Echoes, drips, machinery, silence, and low subterranean textures create a rich sensory experience. The sound work often makes the environments feel as physical as the images.

The sound is one of the film’s biggest technical strengths: reviewers praise the live mix, roaring guitars, stadium-scale impact, and IMAX/Dolby immersion. Even mixed reviews agree that a loud theater suits it.

The science and central ideas are presented clearly enough for older children to follow, while the philosophical material still offers depth for adults. Tight spaces and danger may unsettle sensitive viewers.

The digital graphics at the conclusion are less impressive than the live-action photography, making the ending feel visually weaker.

Liam and Noel’s revived chemistry is a major pleasure: reviewers highlight their comic timing, mutual respect, and the sense that their old sibling rapport has returned in a gentler form.

The strongest dramatic material comes from the uncertainty around the brothers’ first rehearsals and opening show, where even a known outcome still feels tense and high-stakes.

The adaptation preserves the book’s poetic sensibility, hidden landscapes, and philosophical curiosity while taking a more streamlined visual approach. Several critics felt the compression sacrifices political urgency and thematic heft.

The documentary is broadly suitable for family viewing and can spark discussion about science, history, culture, and the environment. Families should consider whether intense cave and storm-drain imagery will bother younger viewers.

Liam and Noel’s humor is a consistent strength, from caustic one-liners to Mick Jagger jokes and relaxed sibling banter that repeatedly breaks through the sentiment.

Hidden cameras, unobtrusive rehearsal coverage, and genuine sibling interactions give the film a strong sense of authenticity. Reviewers often respond to moments that feel unguarded rather than staged.

The film is not conventional horror, but tight cave passages, darkness, flooding risks, and vast underground spaces may be intense for claustrophobic or agoraphobic viewers.

Hannah Peel’s ethereal score complements the imagery and shifts effectively among natural, industrial, and scientific spaces. It is consistently praised as a major part of the film’s immersive atmosphere.

The central onstage performances are praised as masterful, with the reunion shows retaining the authority, confidence, and scale fans hoped for.

The Oasis songs remain the film’s engine, repeatedly described as thrilling, thunderous, timeless, and powerful live. The only notable complaint is that one reviewer wanted more complete performances instead of abbreviated songs.

The wider band is praised as being in excellent form, helping the reunion sound polished and forceful rather than like a nostalgia exercise.

Fans are repeatedly told they will want to relive the reunion, and some expect superfans to return multiple times to catch details or re-experience the concert euphoria.

One reviewer goes as far as saying Liam’s comic Mick Jagger riff is worth the price of admission by itself.