NIALL, LIAM, HARRY, ZAYN AND LOUIS IN ONE DIRECTION: THIS IS US

The global popularity of a British boy band

What is it like to travel with the world's (2½-year) meteorically-risen by far most popular (British) boy band? That's what Morgan (Supersize Me) Spurlock sets out to show in this movie. The result is snappy and enjoyable for fans. But for film critics, the disappointments are many: what boy band (or boy star) doc is going to get rave reviews? Whatever Spurlock's history, he wasn't hired to do deep research here. No exposé of Simon Cowell's X-Factor marketing strategies was planned. Nor is this a stylized fictional romp a la Richard Lester's 1964 Beatles movie, A Hard Day's Night. And if you you watch the 1D boys playing games with the public in deep disguise in one brief sequence and on the street in final outtakes of this film, or their video for "The Best Song Ever" (where they play all the parts, to hilarious effect), or the jokey, tongue-in-cheek ad for the band's fragrance Our Moment, you'll know that this movie is a missed opportunity. The lads have histrionic talents and a sense of play that won't quit. But those aren't brought out much in this film except in the way it shows how often they are having fun or messing around to lighten the grind of life on the road. Nonetheless, they're a kick to hang with, and their on-stage performing is irrepressible, fun, and, like everything they do, never too serious. Brits have a light touch Yanks lack.

I confess I was a YouTube fan of the lads. I can tell you in a wink the difference between Niall Horan, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, and Louis Tomlinson, in personality, voice, and dress styles. This movie can't delve deeply even into that, while covering the intensity of the tour, (focused apparently just on the most recent ones), while providing quick reviews of their humble, small town, working class origins (four English, Niall's Irish); their teenage tryouts on Cowell's X-Factor; their seas of screaming fans in every city and the dauntingly great arenas they're currently booked into; their long tours; their too-sketchy contact with their families and old mates.

The movie gets up close and loud enough in its concert footage to provide vivid, intense samplings of the big 1D hits in recent performance, including the musically nicest one, in my view, the simple, nearly a cappella "Little Things", sitting down in a row with accompaniment only of Niall's guitar. The concert shots show a bit of wear because they've toured constantly for two and a half years, singing a lot of the same songs. But you also feel the still undiminished adrenalin rush and sheer frenetic boyish fun as much as you've ever done in any musical group's filmed concert footage. That, they've got, and that, the girls love. This is the spirit that seems to pervade all the group's time together. Off the arenas, they're seen "conducting" girl screams or running or dodging girl hordes or kissing them ("I'd like to kiss you all," says the amorous Harry, cutest of the bunch, a cherubic version of Mick Jagger). Or they're scribbling autographs, grabbing 40 winks, roughhousing to let off steam, or having a laugh.

When they have a moment, they say what they always say. That they can't believe their luck, love what they're doing, miss their families. That the other band members have become their brothers, their best mates. That it would be dreary touring alone but this way it's like a vacation. They grow so close splitting for home visits is a tiny shock. Briefly, they do get to go home and reconnect with families and pals. Louis tours a Toys R Us he says was the only job he didn't get sacked from. Niall's dad says he can't advise Niall, because he's seen more of the world now. Zayn gives his mom and sisters a new house. The cuddly Harry, the dreamboat of the group, cuddles a bit with the old ladies at the bake shop where he once worked.

If you've followed 1D a while and watched some of their YouTube videos (which exist without end) you'll know more about the band than this movie shows. They do always mention that when they were first formed into a group their first question was not about the music but what they would wear and that they all wanted to dress like Louis (especially his shoes). One Direction may be a step beyond the phase of Internet musical promotion seen in Justin Bieber, who as we know from his own movie, arrived through YouTube videos of his boyish talent: this time the group apparently went huge and global through enormous promotion by girl fans on Twitter. They met screaming thousands everywhere, including the US, Australia, and Japan, touring there before Europe, all before they'd even brought out their first record.

Louis was the most articulate, in early days, with Liam a spokesman too. Niall, with his bushy bleached forelock and brogue, also was irrepressible. He seems the most athletic on stage. Harry's soft, dreamy voice could be heard occasionally. In fact they seemed perfectly balanced, and had the luck as Louis says that there wasn't one who was an "ass." Lots of kidding around and disobeying their security guys. Early on they refused to dress alike, and they proclaim that they're "terrible dancers." In the earlier tours Harry wore preppy jackets and bow ties. Niall wore athletic clothes more, singlets and trainers, Louis was always in sailor stripes with braces, and never wears socks. These details have fallen out of Spurlock's movie. In the later tour it covers, they're dressed nominally unalike, but very much in harmonious blacks and grays. The personal dress styles aren't much seen on stage.

Nor do we get much sense of how their similar voices still can be told apart because of different styles and emphases, Niall's voice choir-boy pure, Harry's lilting and husky, Zayn's strident and passionate, Louis's sharply articulated, Liam's perhaps the fullest, richest voice of the lot. The movie and its concert coverage make no attempt to draw these distinctions, any more than it tries to depict tricky behind-the-scene moments, like briefing by handlers, or rehearsals. The impression given is that they never take rehearsals seriously. In real life some of them they do.

Like him or not Bieber had musical talent as a boy. So did One Direction and they all wanted to sing and entertain as toddlers, but nobody plays an instrument on stage except for Niall's guitar. Nor do they write their songs, though they may have "input" into them. Nor is the music, despite its rock edge, the boy's youthful energy, and the purity of the a capella songs, anything much more than chirpy, romantic, and bland. So what happens and how long does this go on? Surely however global they are, their days are numbered. Once or twice, musing together, the boys ponder this: they are well aware their moment is ephemeral. But Harry says he loves performing so much he wants to do it forever, till people are wondering how he can still be doing it, "like Keith Richards."

One Direction: This Is Us hasn't got the discovered talent, rags-to-riches angles of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, if you're a Belieber. But even if One Direction's tour and concert coverage meanders in the second half, this is clearly more engaging and better made than the sloppy, routine Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience. In quality Spurlock's film lies between those other two. In charm it outranks both.

The smiles may wear off before the tattoos, but I hope not. "Live While You're Young" is one of 1D's early anthems. They're doing that, missing out on a conventional youth, perhaps, in exchange for the global vacation of their dreams and the memories of a lifetime.

One Direction: This Is US releases in many countries between late August and early September, 2013.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.