Metacritic reviews

Particle Fever succeeds on every level, but none more important than in making the normally intimidating and arcane world of genius-level physics at least conceptually comprehensible and even friendly to the lay viewer.

Levinson follows the ups and downs of bringing that beast of a collider online, but the movie's deepest thrill lies in what these men and women will theorize next, and how they will test it.

Particle Fever is that rare, exhilarating science doc that’s neither dumbed down nor drabbed up.

Particle Fever is a fascinating movie about science, and an exciting, revealing and sometimes poignant movie about scientists.

Particle Fever, to its great credit, is very rarely dry. There’s a palpable excitement throughout, even as the work moves slowly, and the physicists themselves are charming and straightforward enough (“We won’t know how, but it’s gonna change everything”) to make it a compelling, if sometimes difficult to follow, story.

As much as any documentary since Errol Morris’ A Brief History Of Time, Particle Fever excels at expressing advanced scientific theory through graphics that are simple, attractive, and utterly approachable.

Particle Fever offers enough broad explanation to keep lay persons up to speed. Where it excels is in depicting the various personalities involved.

For all their concentration on the human factor, the filmmakers by no means shortchange the aesthetic dimensions of LHC.

The final “beams” are the most exciting depictions of science on film since “Apollo 13.”

The film may not put itself above the uninitiated, but director Mark Levinson oftentimes appears almost too eager to present his material with affectation.