It's been a bo-ring movie... I should be sleeping like a log.

Rating: 2/10 (2 August 2006)

Listen up, you mindless, brainwashed Beatles fans. Just skip reading this review and click the "did not find this helpful" box at the bottom. Go on. I ORDER you to do it, you lemmings. I ORDER YOU NOW.
Are they all gone? OK, let us proceed.
I'm a Beatles fan, but I don't mindlessly applaud everything they've done. The Beatles I admire were the guys who wrote their own music, blended styles and philosophies of Eastern cultures, arranged symphonic movements, challenged our musical conceptions... and HAD PERSONALITIES. These qualities wouldn't surface until the 2nd half of their career after they had achieved sufficient confidence to dump the record company "charm school" that had made them.
The first half of their career, up to and including this movie, they were just prettyboy pawns of the record industry. And that's exactly what we get. We get some record producer's lame idea of a Beatles movie, NOT a Beatles movie. They act like, talk like and look like what a record producer would portray. Nothing human, nothing passionate, not even funny. Just reading lines and lip synching their catchiest tunes (somewhat poorly, I might add... Paul gets a few lines wrong, but the cameras just keep on rolling).
Maybe some folks will laugh at the fast-motion antics of the fab four running around a football field and acting like clowns, wrestling and hitting each other. But I'd just as soon skip over that and get to the heart of it all. Surprise. there's no heart. This is just an endless parade of predictable gags and goofiness that becomes downright embarrassing after the first 20 mins.
I repeat: THIS IS NOT THE BEATLES. It's a carefully packaged dress rehearsal of what fans wanted the Beatles to be back in the early 60s. Fans loved it back then, I'm sure. But in retrospect, it's no more interesting than watching a 1964 commercial for Comet Liquid Soap.
Skip this one, folks. Proceed directly to YELLOW SUBMARINE. If you're feeling especially adventurous (mind-altered?), watch MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR. Those films have some personality.