Being a Pearl Jam fan I guessed this is somewhat biased but I believe that Cameron Crowe has put together a work of art here, sure it's not like a Led Zeppelin documentary or some sort, but this retrospect over 20 years goes back to the beginning of Grunge. Seattle late 80's early 90's.. Pearl Jam, Nirvana,, Soundgarden Alice in chains and so forth. I found particularly interesting was when one of the band was asked about their main rival Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, apparently at first Kurt never liked Eddie Vedder or Pearl Jam,, mainly concert footage mixed in with personal stories, interviews with the band,, various other professionals from the music industry detailing the beginnings and rise of my favorite band on the planet,, Pearl Jam..

Pearl Jam is a great band, this movie covers a lot but somewhat disappointing. after the recent masterpiece documentary on the doors and the really good one about the foo fighters this one was kind of boring. the drummer switching which is interesting to fans was referred to in a short sequence without getting into it unlike the member changes in foo fighters who were really brave to bring them to interview in this one u felt like they wanted to ignore it, like they did something bad. also the movie was non linear and gave the viewer no sense of the time everything was happening and why for example the tour with Neil Young why pearl jam wasn't touring with Eddie Vedder. also in the Mike McCready sequence i was hoping for a mention of Mad Season the project he did with the late Lane Staley from Alice in Chains and a bit more of him in the movie like the Kurt Cobain mention. overall this could have been much better instead its an assembly of random stuff from the 20 year career of pearl jam which is nice but not as interesting as it should have been with hardly any conflicts were put on the table maybe that was needed so they can go on for another 10 years.

Unfortunately I cannot give a objective rating about this documentary, because I am a enormous Pearl Jam fan. So the positive feeling that I get when I think of Pearl Jam could influence my view on the documentary.But I do think that it is worth a watch! It is such an interesting and inspiring band that deserves the attention of the big public. The documentary takes you by the hand and shows you how the band started and which big events occurred in the career of the band. I surely contains a lot of footage that I haven't seen before. So that was a pleasant surprise.And when you already like Pearl Jam, I think you will appreciate the music even more in the future. So you should watch it definitely.

Pearl Jam Twenty (2011) **** (out of 4) Wonderful documentary from Cameron Crowe about the twenty years of Pearl Jam. Crowe talks about how he was living in Seattle when the entire grunge/alternative scene broke and from here on we see how the band came to be. Using interviews, archival footage and current concert footage, Crowe turns this into one of the better documentaries out there. We see the band starting out, rising to the top with the album Ten, taking on Ticketmaster, touring with Neil Young and then continue to try and make sure they stay true to themselves even when some of their fans started to question them. I was around 13 when the Seattle based rock really took off and I remember listening to Pearl Jam for a few years but then my music tastes started to change. I really haven't kept up with the band since then so one should keep that in mind as they read this but I thought the documentary was terrific. It really gave me a terrific idea of what the band is, who they wanted to be and it was great fun seeing their rise to fame and seeing how they almost broke up. I found Crowe's direction to be marvelous because a lot of times with these documentaries you have someone who doesn't know how to put all the footage together to make it entertaining. Concert footage is great. Interviews are great. Even television show clips are great. However, so many documentaries don't know how to put all the footage together but Crowe does a wonderful job and really delivers a film that even non-fans should enjoy. Even though I haven't followed the band in many years this documentary really made me want to rush out and buy their CDs and DVDs. I found the interviews to be extremely good and I liked the fact that Crowe didn't shy away from some of the darker moments in their twenty years. The documentary also covers some other groups from this Seattle era including the relationship between Pearl Jam and Nirvana. The suicide of Kurt Cobain is also covered and we get concert footage from the night of his death. Overall Crowe really has worked a mini miracle in bringing Pearl Jam's story to life. If someone like me enjoyed it so much I'm sure die-hard fans of the group will feel as if they're in Heaven.