I knew I was getting old when I met a kid who hadn't been born when Star Wars came out in theaters. Well, after seeing Julien Temple's new Sex Pistols documentary The Filth and the Fury, I realized that "feeling old" is relative. I mean, I'm too young to even remember the Sex Pistols, let alone have any sense that they "changed the world", as this film claims. Still, any good documentary should bring its point home regardless of the viewers' age.

Told from the band's perspective instead of that of their manager Malcolm McLaren who was the voice of Temple's first Pistols docu The Great Rock 'n Roll Swindle", the story here is far from unique. "Evil" manager, egos and drugs destroy rock band What's new? There's also the inference that the Sex Pistols were the first sign of modern counter culture. Well, yes, they are certainly a seminal rock band, but, if my history serves me right, there was a little American counter culture movement called in 1969, right? The point here is that, while the Pistols' story certainly has some interesting moments, it's relatively standard issue and Temple's long-winded and sometimes artsy exploration of it does start to wear you down.

Where the film succeeds is in its expose of a band that said bollocks to polite society and, in the process, completely shook up the world both musically and culturally. The Pistols were truly some of the first poster boys for the phrase "angry young men" and, as leader singer Johnny Rotten says of them, "We managed to offend all the people we were f*cking fed up with." If you look at the world in which these boys grew up, their evolution as a band was almost pre-ordained.

1970's Britain, especially London, was, to put it mildly, an incendiary cauldron. Rioting was rampant and a garbage strike cluttered the streets with refuse. Social constraints were so extreme that swearing on TV could land you In jail. If you weren't born into money, you were nothing. The working class was a forgotten and lost population. As Rotten says, "When you feel powerless, you grab any power you can" and that's what the Pistols did as a band. Rotten, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock replaced by punk parody Sid Vicious stood up to the establishment because they had nothing to lose.

The idea of "punk" - both politically and emotionally -- is the thematic core of this film. Ironically, the "third-rate tramp" style that the band inspired came from their simply being poor. When you have no money and you rip your clothes, you safety pin them back together. Voila! Instant punk. Well, whether the movement was intentionally conceived or otherwise, an entire generation of British kids embraced it with a vengeance, terrifying their elders in the process. Ironically, the band felt that the punk movement, meant to be brave and egalitarian, eventually lost its individuality as kids sported a uniform in look and personality.

Temple covers all the bases in the bands' history: Their signing with and subsequent firing by EMI Records, the fall-out between Glen and Rotten, which led to Glen's replacement by Sid Vicious and Sid's downfall thanks to the infamous Nancy. The real beginning of the end occurred with the band's unintentional declaration of war on the establishment with Rotten's abrasive anthem "God Save the Queen", which got them banned from performing and sent them packing to America where they soon crumbled.

Temple doesn't cut corners in the film, giving everyone-including McLaren -- a voice, but Rotten is by far the most vocal and entertaining. Even now, Rotten believes that the Pistols are responsible for many of the social freedoms we enjoy today. The film's perspective certainly supports this opinion, although its explanation of "how and why" is a bit amorphous. Swearing on TV and teaching kids to dress in ripped clothes doesn't really constitute social change, although there is no question that the Pistols shook up a system that definitely needed shaking.

Still, despite some riveting archival footage and modern interviews, the film definitely starts to drag, especially with the inclusion of some supposedly enlightening, but mostly manipulative footage of Lawrence Olivier as Richard III. The inference seems to be that both the Pistols and Richard were misfits who were destroyed for their views. Well, it all comes off as a bit artsy; the embittered cartoon sequences are much more appropriate stylistically.

The Filth and the Fury succeeds from a factual standpoint, very clearly showing why the Pistols appeared when they did and why they fizzled. Yet, the film lacks a real soul. You don't leave the theater truly understanding these boys. They just seem like angry kids who finally got their say. (And, in fact, this is still how Rotten seems) Yes, their gutsy-ness is admirable, but it's a gutsy-ness born of situation not contemplation. Temple is to be congratulated for not flinching in his point of view - that the Pistols changed our world as we know it -- but you can't help but question if it isn't just a bit too lofty.