Extremely Disappointing

Rating: 1/10 (10 March 2008)

I love the music of the Beatles and was curious to say the least when I happened to catch this movie on an intercontinental flight the other day. The fact that this movie, that hardly made it to theaters outside of the US, was on an in-flight program should have made me suspicious: after all, airplanes is where box-office bombs usually go to make up for revenue lost on the ground.
The movie started out quite pretentious and even though the start - with Jim Sturgess' weak rendition of "Girl"- wasn't promising, the idea of a musical full of Beatles-music still sounded intriguing. However, not too long into the movie I was quite appalled by the exploitative character of this musical: the story hardly gets a chance to develop since every 5 minutes the story takes a U-turn because another excuse needs to be made for another actor or actress who takes himself or herself too seriously to start blaring out another Beatles-tune. To make it even more pretentious the history of the sixties is intertwined in the whole thing. Sometimes this makes for some unintended laughs, especially since the acting is usually quite bad. You can tell every air-headed cast member in this turd is convinced that his/her below-par rendition of any which Beatles-track they're singing is their big break, so they try and make it more "emotional" with meaningful contemplative dreamy look son their faces that make soap-opera acting suddenly look quite intense. You'll have a hard time taking any cast member (but especially leads Sturgess and Wood) seriously in any role after this. I know I will never be able to.
To say this musical is a beautiful tribute to the music of the Beatles feels like saying that Heather Mills truly loved Paul McCartney. This musical is exploiting the Beatles just as much as she is.
To Beatles-Fans and movie fans worldwide: stay as far away from this dud as you can. It bombed at Box Offices worldwide, with all the right in the world to do so.