I'm really baffled as to how this reviewed so well with critics. I think George is kind of an absurd character, but everyone else is really bland. The documentary doesn't do a great job of really analyzing the way the festival is run or what motivates the other characters, instead trying to drum up some sort of Succession style drama, except for the fact that the actual actions the characters are taking are not actually that crazy or impressive or even entertaining. It's just very bland and drawn out, and you can see by the ending that they didn't really have a story to tell. I feel like they were trying to capitalize on the way Tiger King went viral, but at least that story had genuine absurdity driving it. This one simply does not. It has some heavy stylization, but that's about it.

Yikes. not very interesting people here.

I have to be honest, I don’t fully see the raves for this. There’s some good shots, George is an awful but compelling figure for a documentary, and it’s a story about ego and staying in our cycles because to give them up would mean changing. I get all that. But besides George, the other figures of the story don’t work. They’re performing for the camera, and it creates this artificiality to everything. George is the only one who feels natural and real. This dramatized, sensationalized approach doesn’t work for me.

Ultimately pointless. No huzzahs here for this Ye Olde Tiger King.