The events of this TV show revolve around two competitions: Mr. Universe, for the amateur participants, and Mr. Olympia, for the professionals. It looks like there are different paths and challenges by displaying bodybuilding and celebrity.
The most fascinating aspect of this film is the dedicated training that turns average-built young men (frequently they refer to themselves as weaklings in their early youth) into superbly-created physical edifices.
An interesting, rather slick and excessively long documentary about the small but intensely competitive world of body-building.
Hollywood Reporter
January 06, 2004
Its in-your-face images of the bodybuilding subculture's well-oiled narcissism both startled and fascinated viewers, making for an unlikely boxoffice hit.
TV Guide
March 14, 2007
Directors George Butler and Robert Fiore never allow their film to turn into a freak show, but neither do they illuminate the appeal of body building, either to those who participate or those who watch.
The stage show is all about oiled hardbodies and sculpted musculature, but the movie is a portrait of competition as war and Schwarzenegger as the warrior supreme...
A very good film, beautifully shot and edited, intelligently structured and -- to risk what will surely seem at first a highly inappropriate term -- charming.
