Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour movie review - ultimate sensory cinema experience with a true musical megastar

I, like every other person on the planet, knew that Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour movie would be big before I could even smell the popcorn. Let’s face it: Swift and her fanbase don’t do things by halves - she’s sold 200m records worldwide, has 12 Grammys, and is the most streamed female artist on Spotify. A film all about her biggest ever tour was unlikely to be a sedate affair.

Of course, as with everything Swift touches, the tickets sold fast. Filmed at three shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California in August, the film earned more than $100 million in global pre-sale tickets alone, making it the highest-grossing concert film of all-time before the silver screen had even had the chance to flicker with the opening chords of ‘Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince’.

Armed with more snacks than would be medically recommended but still not quite enough to last me the full three-hour running time, I’ll admit to being slightly apprehensive going in - I’m not an avowed Swiftie by any means and, while I like her music, I’m not at the recite-every-lyric kind of level by any stretch of the imagination.

But, despite that, the entire experience - a marathon whirlwind of red lipstick, costume changes, and banger after banger - was thoroughly enjoyable for the simple reason that it was undeniable that we were witnessing an authentic music powerhouse on stage. In complete control of her act, the baying crowd, and the close-knit atmosphere in the mega-bowl of a stadium, Swift was magnetic and supremely comfortable in her stardom.

Rattling through 40-odd songs, from slow and moving numbers to powerful club hits and contemporary tracks from her latest album Midnights which have reverberated ad nauseum across radio airwaves over the past year, Swift puts on one hell of a show. And it’s made even grander by the scale of seeing it in ultra-HD on the big screen. If that was even possible in the first place.