I used to think of Andrew Ridgeley, one half of the pop duo Wham!, as this lucky guy who had hitched his cart to George Michael. Turns out, the real story is far more interesting.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 27, 2023

Wham! inadvertently becomes a music documentary without much interest in music. Like the band themselves, this is a breezy watch, but if there's profundity beneath the perms and the cut-offs, the film struggles to find it.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 13, 2023

If all you want from the film is a kind of nostalgic pep pill... you’ll find that the movie totally scratches than itch. But “Wham!” is also a fascinating music documentary that’s telling two stories at once.

| Jul 9, 2023

A documentary as bright as the band’s short-shorts and as satisfying as their enduring hits.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 6, 2023

The quick-fire narrative — a rise with no time for a fall — may be part of why the tale has had to wait so long to be told on-screen, unfolding in a 1980s Britain that can already feel as distant as the Moon.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 6, 2023

Wham! is a treat for fans of ’80s culture.

| Jul 5, 2023

A total blast, regardless of your level of fandom.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 5, 2023

Nothing here’s overthought or pumped up. To invoke the words of a different beacon of catchiness, “Wham!” is a teenage dream. You could drink it from a coconut.

| Jul 5, 2023

Chris Smith strikes just the right notes, if you will, by telling the story of Wham! respectfully and without irony.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 4, 2023

“Wham!” tells a sweet story, but also a goofy and entertaining one, because these guys were more ’80s than anybody, more even than “Miami Vice” and Duran Duran.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 4, 2023

It’s been made for the fans, but they’ll know every last detail already: it’s pop history as singalong.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 30, 2023

The film, which creates a dialogue between recent interviews with Ridgeley and older archive recordings of Michael, pays tribute to the close bond between the two Bushey Meads school friends who found themselves living the dream.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 27, 2023

It’s an enjoyable spectacle, and a madeleine for the 1980s: but there was something more to say about friendship, sexuality and the music itself.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 21, 2023

The quality is far above the norm for this type of memoir assemblage, even if the substance is full of air bubbles...

| Jun 21, 2023

It is ultimately as light, frothy and insubstantial as the hits it explores.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 20, 2023

Cleverly stitched together and drawing on a vast archive of audio recordings, their narrative does not shy away from reappraising the band’s past and even calling themselves out.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 20, 2023