User Reviews

This is a great documentary series, especially when it's free to watch on YouTube. It goes through the story of Bez, and how he wants to run the London marathon during Covid, and after his insane body transformation. The best part of this series is the story, however, a lot is missing from this series that makes my personal review of it not so good.

Now just a heads up, I'm a filmmaker myself, and I watch a lot, and I mean a lot of documentaries, some great, some bad, but I always appreciate the effort that goes into creating them. However, since I am a filmmaker, and I watch films, I may seem critical to some of the people who see this as really high quality, it is high quality, but for YouTube.

This series in the grand scheme of things, is very average when it comes to series where hundreds of people are involved in creating them.

The main issue I have with this series, is that it's both too fast, and too slow. You'll get what I mean in a sec.

When we're watching the scene of Ethan trying to pull a truck, the amount of time you see that scene is way to short. However the amount of cuts that are in that scene is just insane to the point of disorientation.

The part where the tank fires and there are loads of cuts to add drama are fine, common, but probably the only thing you should do here. I personally would have left all of the B-roll out of this scene as it just breaks pacing, just a personal preference though.

Now when Eddie starts talking to Ethan, this is where the edit just breaks down, there is about 1 cut every second during this conversation scene, now to put that into context, a transformers fight scene, a fight scene, has an average shot duration of 2.8 seconds. Now you may say that this is too keep the pace up. and I'd understand why, but in this case it just doesn't work. If anything, this scene is based on context, it's explaining to us, the viewer, what is happening. That shots should be focusing on Eddie explaining, and not cuts to Ethan. Yes he's an important character, but in this case, most of his reactions don't matter (when discounting the one when Eddie says its a 20 ton truck that's the right way to use a reaction shot) The rest of the scene should have been focused on Eddie explaining what was going on and that's it.

ok I can't be asked to examine another scene, so I'll just move into the cinematography. It isn't amazing, but at the same time it isn't bad. It's trying to tell a true documentary story, so the Scenes looking "normal" and not really cinematic is most likely a good thing.

The story on the other hand is great, and the fact that most viewers already know Ethan from his YouTube channel and the sidemen makes it an even better watch for most people, even if the story is pretty basic for the most part.

I also have to appreciate the amount of time planning, and finding ways to film the finally of the doc, it's got some genuinely unbelievably placed shots, that couldn't of been shot without some intense planning

Overall, if you love Ethen, or the sidemen, then this is a great show for you. If you like the concept of weight loss and running, then it's also a great series to watch.

But, if your more used to standard top end documentaries like Don't f with cats, or the social dilemma, along with many others, then this isn't the series for you.

Story: 7/10

Cinematography: 7/10

Editing: 4/10

Character development: 6/10

24/40

6/10 imdb