Bigger

As a biography, Bigger hearkens back to the days when Hollywood biopics cranked out knights in shining armor using whatever mixture of fact and fiction they thought would fill the seats and send everybody home happy. Joe Weider is a presented as a blemish-free altruist who only wants to help the world become a fitter place; various inconvenient aspects of Joe's private and professional lives - including the timing of his two marriages and the existence of his daughter, legal difficulties stemming from highly exaggerated claims of his products' effectiveness, questionable treatment of business partners, and strong presence in the gay-oriented "beefcake magazine" market of the 1950s and early 60s with titles like Adonis and Body Beautiful - are either glossed over or ignored completely. Meanwhile, the villainous foil "Bill Hauk", officially claimed to be a composite of several real-life characters but pretty clearly a representation of U.S. Olympic weightlifting coach and rival muscle mag publisher Bob Hoffman, is a cartoonishly evil, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, violent thug. Exec produced by nephew Eric Weider, the film plays like the Weider Empire's bid for Joe's sainthood.

Historical inaccuracies and omissions aside, as a movie it just isn't very satisfying. The years flip by so quickly it's difficult to build up much momentum, and we're often left wondering exactly how last year's big dilemma played out. Tyler Hoechlin as Joe does a capable job mimicking Weider's distinctive Polish/Yiddish/Quebecois accent but tacks on an awkwardly stilted manner of speech; oddly, both of these are absent in the always-classy Robert Forster's portrayal of Joe as an old man. The labored delivery combined with Joe's single-minded obsession with fitness makes him appear to be a sort of Rain Man of bodybuilding, and only succeeds in distancing the audience from the character. Repeated anti-Semitic attacks and accusations of homosexuality fail to build the viewer's sympathy after the first few instances, with a mounting array of epithets not heard for a while in a non-Tarentino movie.

The film tries hard to present Joe Weider's life story as a classic David-versus-Goliath struggle. But given the ending we already know, it's pretty clear that this David's goal all along was to become an even bigger Goliath.

Huge bb fan and in the industry so I was excited for this movie. Just felt like there was no crescendo. Interesting story however accurate it actually is. Would have been fun to see more of the Arnold/frank/Sergio competition. It was just a blip in the movie. I know it's about Weider but still that time was defined by the Oak.

The description of this movie made it look like it was primarily about the discovery of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In fact, Ah-nuld has a relatively minor role, but we do learn a lot about the brothers who supposedly discovered him and made him a star. I say "supposedly" because one wonders in movies like this whether the events really happened. At the end, I did see this was based on real people. But when I came to imdb, people claimed a lot of events didn't really happen. Doesn't matter. It's a good story.

For years, to me Tyler Hoechlin has been Superman as well as the decent but humble Clark Kent. Here, he was a very different character. It is probably correct to say he gave a good performance because he was nothing like what I have seen. Joe showed a lot of determination and courage, but he seemed to have difficulty interacting with other people. For a man with such a well-developed body, he certainly seemed shy and unable to assert himself, except in limited situations. I would even say that today one might describe him as on the autism spectrum. If all of this was intended, then sure, Hoechlin did a great job. But the accent and the way he talked seemed to take away from the story. Maybe he needed to have the accent. After all, when Arnold complains he can't be an actor because of his accent, Joe says he has an accent too. To me, Hoechlin's best scene, though, is the one where he tells his brother his feelings about serving in WWII, where the accent is conveniently forgotten and the powerful voice of Superman is heard.

Robert Forster showed class and dignity as the older man. He seemed more confident than his younger self.

Julianne Hough is quite good as some kind of a celebrity. She is pretty and ends up as Joe's wife and contributes to his business.

Aneurin Barnard is not someone I have ever heard of, and he didn't stand out, but he did his job. He was the man who made things happen behind the scenes, even if we didn't get to see a lot of that. And when we did, he was low-key for the most part.

Tom Arnold is a familiar name to me. I wouldn't say he is a funny character, but he is quite good as a smoking and drinking businessman who can make Joe's career.

Kevin Durand is a cartoon. But he is effective, in his way, as the cruel fictional nemesis magazine publisher. I guess one could say he is Joe's Lex Luthor, but more of a Gene Hackman than a Michael Rosenbaum. Hoechlin recently was introduced to his own Lex, but that one shouldn't even be mentioned here. That Lex is more like a character The Arnold would play.

The nice and pretty first wife for Joe stood out, and I wish she had stayed with him.

As for Arnold himself, Calum Von Moger looked and talked like the man well enough, and he was quite likable. It never occurred to me that even as a competitor, Arnold would have the charm and sense of humor that made people like him as an actor. And yet that was the case here.

Plenty of obstacles stood in the way of the brothers' success, but we know they eventually made things happen, or there would have been no movie.

There is a lot of hate in this movie. Bill in particular is an anti-Semite and a racist and so Joe's boss at a restaurant is anti-Semitic and a homophobe. I don't know that anyone in the movie was gay, but Joe's obsession with male bodies made him look that way to some. But he only married women. Actually, I am guessing about people hating gays because the word was always bleeped.

I think it's worth seeing.

Now I know about the sport of bodybuilding as I have trained in gyms in and off since the eighties and used to buy the Weider magazines.

So I was looking forward to this film to see old time bodybuilders. The film had a few in there but nothing as I thought there would be.

So the film itself was good but nothing special, I felt it played it safe, nothing controversial in it. I was waiting for a strong punchline, something that would say it was in the Raging Bull side of movies not Driving Miss Daisy side of films, it sided with the latter.

So I enjoyed but left disappointed with it.

Overall a good film but nothing special with it.

BIGGER is essentially the video biography of the grandfather of bodybuilding/nutrition, Joe Weider.

Perhaps best known for his weights (WEIDER across a set of plates or barbells at your local gym), Joe and his brother Ben arguably brought bodybuilding and the need for balanced nutrition to the forefront of western culture, some 60 years ago. The billion dollar market that exists today, is based on the template that Weider created with his magazines, equipment, pro competitions and the creation of the IFBB.

The film portrayal is loyal to his life, vision and clearly conveys the passion Joe obviously felt from a very young age without any outside influence in being drawn to the sport of bodybuilding (before he had it recognized as a sport).

To me, the firl was very entertaining beginning to end; some of the acting was a little wooden at times and downright awful at others (Calum Von Moger, looking at you) but it can be forgiven for these moments, since the goal of showing Arnold in his prime at a competition were achieved/believable, which obviously outweighed the requirement to have him be a good actor to boot. With that said, I really hope Calum pursues acting (after some good lessons) because it would be a lot of fun to see him throw people around in roles like Arnie used to do, coupled with memorable one-liners ( "Crush ya' enemies, see dem driven befo' you...")

All in all, a great movie which I recommend checking out. Solid 3.5 out of 5 stars.