Michael Bay has benefitted from a vibe shift among cinephiles in recent years, going from punchline status to being (sometimes begrudgingly) acknowledged as a distinct auteur. These days, you’re more likely to see someone with a Letterboxd link in their bio telling you that “AmbuLAnce” is an underrated work of camp than making snide comments about Bay’s love of explosions.
If you’re looking to distill Bay’s work down to one distinct theme, you could do a lot worse than the idea that the things we enjoy as children shouldn’t have to lose their value as we enter adulthood. From spaceships and military jets to literal Hasbro products, Bay has always come across as a little boy who grew up and got to spend his life playing with his favorite toys on a massive scale. He has always defended the fact that he makes the kind of unapologetic escapism that would have delighted him in middle school and seems admirably content to have a blast making movies without concern for what film snobs might think.
In that light, it makes perfect sense that Bay’s first foray into documentary filmmaking is “We Are Storror,” a portrait of the world’s most famous parkour team who fear that aging bodies and YouTube demonetization might someday force them to get real jobs. The film features plenty of death-defying spectacle as the daredevils chase bigger and bigger highs jumping between buildings, but it’s ultimately a film about what happens when seven middle school boys find a hobby and stick with it for so long that they never have to consider the possibility of doing anything else. Until, of course, they inevitably do.
With nearly 11 million YouTube subscribers, the parkour collective known as Storror has become one of the biggest brands in athletics. Established in 2010 by seven friends from southeastern England, the group has earned international fame and fortune by turning urban sprawl into the ultimate obstacle courses. They spend their lives sneaking onto the roofs of skyscrapers and jumping between them, hurdling over railings, and generally risking their lives for the thrill of precision. It’s a medium that falls somewhere between sports and art, requiring the creativity to see opportunity where others just see buildings and the fitness to confidently make jumps that would end your life if you missed.
Storror members insist that parkour is misunderstood as simply jumping between buildings, though a solid 80% of the stunt footage in “We Are Storror” is them jumping between buildings. And even if it’s an oversimplification, it makes sense to distill the entire sport to an act that encapsulates the danger its participants find so poetic. A common refrain in the film is that parkour is the only sport at which you’re never allowed to fail. Tom Brady threw interceptions and Michael Jordan missed baskets without consequences, but nobody who jumps between 100 story skyscrapers gets a second chance if they get it wrong.
“We Are Storror” does feature some eloquent monologues about the precision and danger of parkour and what that says about life itself. But at their core, these seven building jumpers seem primarily motivated by the love of hanging out with their bros. They all stumbled into parkour at young ages and their lives will forever be defined by the camaraderie they found in Storror. The makeshift family has guided them through every formative chapter of their lives, from the awkwardness of middle school to the moment you realize all of your friends are getting married and starting families. As they nervously discuss what might come next, it becomes clear that their biggest fear is change.
There is no ticking clock or looming finish line that poses an immediate threat to Storror, but the future is on everyone’s mind. It seems self-evident that their bodies won’t allow them to make these jumps forever, and at a certain point people will have enough to lose to render the risks undesirable. There’s also the constant changes to YouTube algorithms — a rule change that demonetized roof jumps forced the crew to start finding new stunts to film, many of which are less artistically satisfying to them.
In some ways, “We Are Storror” feels like a coming-of-age movie that’s happening a decade too late, as these seven friends have largely been spared the burden of making pragmatic decisions in their teens and 20s thanks to the success of their YouTube channel. There is a limit to how much sympathy can be felt for their monologues about losing the endless freedom of hanging out with friends without responsibilities, given that they enjoyed it for a solid decade more than anyone watching probably did. Nevertheless, “We Are Storror” is a compelling document of a friendship that has shaped seven lives for the better and left them in the enviable position of being able to honestly say their deepest desire is for everything to remain the same. Father Time is undefeated, but sometimes the best way to momentarily freeze his effects is to spend a second leaping between two skyscrapers.
Grade: B
“We Are Storror” premiered at SXSW 2025. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
Want to stay up to date on IndieWire’s film reviews and critical thoughts? Subscribe here to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers.
Source link
