My Review of "Wham!"

Wham! is a Netflix exclusive documentary on the rise and fall of the popular band called Wham!. Growing up in the 80s I was aware of their music but I didn't realize how big they really were. I'm sure many of the general public only know of George Michaels but they probably don't recognize how crucial this band was to his career.

The story starts off from the very beginning of the friendship between George Michaels and Andrew Ridgeley. The two have been life long friends since the tender age of 11 and 12. This story just gets better and better as the two blossom their friendship by creating a their band Wham!.

I wonder in my mind how kids at such a young age have so much drive and self confidence to even push themselves to do such a thing. Well, it's actually more a credit to Andrew as he was the leader of the two back in the day. It's hard to believe because he's not the well known of the duo.

We kind of have such an interesting synopsis of how both of these boys would transition to men and which directions they would go as they did. Still, despite the fame they accrued over the short 4 years they had together these two remained great friends.

I'm surprised in this film it seemed as though the two were just good supportive friends throughout their lives. It's hard to believe as we usually have biopics talk about how someone in a band has to get a big ego and ruins the whole thing. This biopic does a great job in showing us that their friendship remained in tact and why it did.

It kind of warms your heart watching this movie as you see that despite the craziness going around them within those 4 years the two were still so good to one another. Though you do see a little sadness in Andrew as their partnership starts to reach its tail end.

Though in some sense this is more of a George Michael biography than simply a Wham! biography. He has the biggest metamorphosis but we understand that this period in his life was crucial to let him evolve into who he became.

I almost feel like this film was actually only a first part of a two part series. It ends on a little bit of a cliffhanger assuming that we know the whole George Michael story. That's unfortunate because this was quite a long time ago so a lot of us have hazy memories and some of us don't know them at all.

The pacing was very well done with it being broken up into parts. Andrew's mother had kept a very thorough scrapbook of their journey and they kind of used that to guide us onto their journey. I loved this and it made the story feel a little more personable as George and Andrew were narrating the story.

I for one was shocked that George was narrating a lot of the story since he had passed away back in 2016. Maybe they were already working on this documentary before he had passed away? It's really weird because the narration feels so smooth and seamless as the story progressed.

Some of the achievements and the meteoric rise of the band were very eye opening to me. I had no idea how big they really were. They really changed the game and to this day I still hear their music every so often.

Overall, I had a great time with this documentary. Netflix seems like the go to place for fascinating well paced documentaries. This one is no different. I have to give this documentary an 8 out of 10. I really wish that they'd continue on and finish the George Michael story. I'll watch that one immediately when it comes out.