Taylor Swift began her long-awaited tour to fans in March of 2023. Later in the tour on Sept. 26, 2023, the area's tour movie was announced to fans. The film captures three nights of the tour in Los Angeles, California, at the SoFi Stadium put into one film.
The concert follows Swift on a tour through her discography list, or through her "eras." The film runs at three hours and 30 minutes long, and the film originally premiered in theaters on Oct. 13, 2023. The tour became the highest grossing concert film of all time, amassing $261.7 million in its theatrical release.
An extended version of the film came to Disney+ on March 14, with exclusive songs left out of the first cut being shown in this version.
Highs
The cinematography overall is spectacular. With lens flares around Swift, with all the camera's angles encapsulating things around Swift like smoke and flashing lights, they all frame her movements and sell every shot. In the "reputation" Era, the songs “Don't Blame Me” and “Look What You Made Me Do” are great examples of the camera work being amazing, from the camera circling around Swift to taking the beats of the songs with the transitions of the camera, and interaction with her dancers giving this full cohesive image in these songs. The detail put into making this film visually is stunning throughout.
Digital elements get enhanced on screen to set the scene even more. Each section of the tour has a transition into the next; the digital aspect of the movie makes those scenes vibrant and interesting to fill that dead space between transitions. The "reputation" Era was a great representation of that. When on tour, the snake goes through the stage digitally, but on the film, they make the transition into a 3D snake that goes across the stage and through the stadium. Details like that are put into this concert to make every moment filled with something special to give a great at-home show. This tour is different from just showing a concert on screen. Transitions move the scenes through the story beautifully. When a transition is happening on stage, the use of crowd cam fills that dead space visually really well.
Honorable mention: the closed captions on the film are fabulous. Usually closed captions are very hit or miss, but these spelt all the lyrics correctly and showed the beats, which is greatly appreciated for everyone to enjoy the show.
Lows
A disadvantage of this concert is the confine of the screen. This tour is so big and bright with a million things happening at once, and most of the time we only see Swift and not the dancers or the elements/images made for the tour. The whole stage is a part of the concert, which we see in glimpses, but I wish there was a way to capture more details because this concert is so detail-oriented. I get this is Taylor Swift's concert and you want to see her, but less close up shots would work well with a tour like this when there is more stuff happening around her with a stage designed to tell a story. A perfect example of this is in the song “Archer” as there are a lot of wide shots, but it's only Swift on stage, so that would be a place to have those close shots versus in a song like “Lover” where there are dancers on stage performing.
Verdict
This tour is a culmination of Swift’s passion and love for entertaining, and it shows. This film is the best way for fans to get a front row seat, or for a great introduction to Swift’s performance quality and passion. Seeing this film once isn't enough; you'll find new details every time you watch, so this is a concert film that is worth the re-watch.
I give “Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour” a 10 out 10.
