Creation Stories tells the unforgettable tale of infamous Creation Records label head Alan McGee; and of how one written-off young Glaswegian upstart rose to irrevocably change the face of British culture.

Alan McGee is best known as being the man who discovered Oasis, and through his record label ‘Creation’, helped them become one of the biggest bands in the world. ‘Creation Stories‘, starring ‘Trainspotting’s’ Ewan Bremner as McGee, sets out to tell the story of how McGee got into the music industry and how the steps he took led him to Oasis, and to where he is today. It’s a pretty shoddy music biopic that has a decent soundtrack and some good moments, but mostly has the feel of a film that thinks it and its subject matter are cooler than they are.

The film takes place mostly in the 80s and 90s, with the exception of an annoying framing device with McGee being interviewed in Los Angeles, and you’d be forgiven for thinking the film was made in the 90s, such is the extent to which it feels dated. Everything about it screams out that it wants to be a cool, nostalgic trip back to that time period, but I found a lot of the narrative uninteresting and the style irritating. Bremner is an actor who has produced solid work in many different movies but I found him really hard to enjoy here, with his take on McGee being to play him as a combination of Spud from ‘Trainspotting’ and Coco Bryce from ‘The Acid House’ on even more drugs. Indeed, ‘Creation Stories’ feels quite derivative stylistically of those 90s movies, but without the charm or deeper thematic resonance (moreso in the case of ‘Trainspotting’)

Music biopics are ten a penny these days and I dare say a good one could have been made out of this story, but ‘Creation Stories’ is not it and I found this to be a forgettable trip back in time. If you want a good record label origin movie, stick on ‘Good Vibrations’ instead.

Rating: 2/5

Directed By: Nick Moran

Starring: Ewen Bremner, Suki Waterhouse, Jason Isaacs, Rebecca Root, Thomas Turgoose, Richard Jobson, Joanna Pickering, Danny John-Jules, Paul Kaye, Carl Barat, Saskia Reeves and Jason Flemyng

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5693182/