Metacritic reviews

Bremner, perfectly cast and moving as well as funny, makes McGee an unrepentant showman who’s also an addict high on his own success. It’s refreshing, after the arduous self-pity of Rocketman, to watch a British music biopic which doesn’t wallow in finger-wagging regrets all day.

Director Nick Moran gets the temperature of the era mostly right, and effectively weaves this extraordinary source material into a watchable if formulaic two hours.

If it occasionally strains too hard to underline its “rebellious” credentials, with an expletive-laden script, quick cuts, archive pop clips and trippy visuals, the brassy, keep-up-if-you-can approach keeps the authentic cadence of Glasgow and, more generally, helps Moran mitigate the slightly stagey production values and sets.

Despite trying to be forcefully meta (McGee explicitly says he hates biopics), the platitude-plagued script and mostly mundane filmmaking underscore how ultimately unadventurous Creation Stories is.

A lairy, likable film.

Though entertaining, the funky flourishes offered in plotting, visuals, and voiceover ultimately become a superficial rebellion, draped over a disappointingly stale form. Basically, it’s like sticking safety pins on a t-shirt pre-torn at The Gap.

All in all, Creation Stories is by no means a loss, it's just missing that special ingredient that would transform it into a film worth being excited about. Instead, it could have simply been a spirited documentary narrated by Bremner.

“Stories” does have a handful of funny and affecting scenes. But it’s most interesting when McGee, after sobering up, makes an ill-advised alliance with Tony Blair.

The frenetic pacing, intended to sweep the audience along, can’t draw attention away from Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh’s platitude-riddled script.

As directed by Nick Moran in obvious imitation of executive producer Danny Boyle’s most hyperbolic style, scripted by Irvine Welsh and Dean Cavanagh, this apparently loose interpretation of the subject’s memoir becomes a hyperventilating “Behind the Music” caricature, all familiar flash and precious little substance.