This stunning concert documentary sheds fresh light on U2's controversial 1997 Popmart tour, the Irish rockers' gaudy, epic trek in support of their electronica-edged "Pop" album. Mixed reactions to the pulsing, dance friendly music on "Pop" and disappointing ticket sales to stateside Popmart shows were interpreted as evidence that the band's new sound and look were merely opportunistic.
Yet one need only view "Popmart Live" alongside the Rolling Stones' contemporaneous "Bridges to Babylon 1998" long-form video to grasp U2's underlying passion and conviction. While "Popmart" trumps the Stones (ringmasters of the original rock & roll circus and among the principal inventors of stadium rock) in terms of sheer scale, U2's presentation still strikes thematic sparks missing from the Stones' more conservative designs for the "Bridges" stage.
With its vast, ramped stage and enveloping video backdrop, the "Popmart" set serves the band's posttechno impulses, yet the music remains rooted in U2's passionate, high-flying rock style, using its skittering dance rhythms and garish pop-art motifs to support the band's underlying themes, not replace them. Filmed in Mexico City before a huge reverent crowd, the concert balances close-ups against the quartet's often mesmerizing staging effects; the camera work sustains a sense of the show's outsized physical setting, while expertly closing the distance between us and the band.
The band also shrewdly integrates older songs into the pumped up, burnished arranging style heard on "Pop" while stripping down newer material in less varnished, more vulnerable settings. A series of duets with just Bono and the Edge on acoustic guitars underscores that strategy. "--Sam Sutherland"