I expected it not to suck. It sucked.

Rating: 2/10 (11 May 2008)

This movie was offensively, horribly bad. Let me begin by saying that I actually like the Beatles quite a bit, I even like a lot of Beatles covers, and I even enjoy a fair number of musicals. But this film was wretched bad.
There are two scenes which don't stink.
(1) The 'Let it Be cover', though in many ways not 'faithful' to the original, is done with a nice sincerity, and the performance is quite good. The imagery is heavy-handed as heck, but early enough in the film is hasn't entirely numbed your brain. (2) The scene in which Maxwell shows up for enlistment with the military is quite good, excellently choreographed and full of great imagery. Even the musical adaptation of 'She's so Heavy' is quite good, and the image which plays during the main chorus of the song is itself almost worth sitting through the rest of the tripe which constitutes this self-indulgent piece of crap.
Aside from that--- it's a stinker. Since the movie deals with music, let's address the music of the film; for the most part, these are the worst possible Beatles covers I have ever heard. Do you enjoy whiny emo inflection upon half the songs, wherein the instrumental portions are generally put so far in the back of the mix that they are barely audible at points? They made a movie just for you. The most painful covers are those which constitute the 'psychedelic' portion of the movie--- which is strange, since developments in sound technology could have made these the most enjoyable covers. "I am the Walrus" is an insult to the Beatles, and whoever cast Bono as Dr. Roberts.... well, they should have thought that out a little better, to be gentle about it. Bono sucks. A deadpan 'Coo-coo ka-choo' indeed... But the cover of "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite" is certainly worse. In fact, it may be one of the worst covers ever done in the history of all covers ever being done, ever. There are not enough negative adjectives in the English language to fully express my discontent with this cover. The cover of 'Helter Skelter' is pompous, and warps the frenzied passion the Beatles played with into a cliché bar-rock version... The music, in short, is bad.
Of course, music is always a matter of taste. Maybe you'd enjoy hearing really awful covers of good music. Music aside, what is there? Plot? Barely. Here's the plot: Boy meets girl. They fall in love. He decides to become an artist. She decides to become a political activist. They get in an argument about whether or not violence is necessary in a revolution, or whether all you need is love. Turns out, sure, all you need is love, and then a crappy movie full of covers to remind people, as the failure of the 60's revolution is fully comprehended in it's massiveness, amid war and economic depression.
There are some subplots. The Jimi Hendrix impersonator and the Janis Joplin impersonator have a rocky relationship. For those under age 13, who are apparently in the marketing demographic of this film, it might interest you to know that Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin were not in the Beatles.
There's a character who gets drafted, goes to war, and concludes 'war sucks'. Just in case you didn't know.
There's a lonely lesbian pouting in a closet. She's asked to come out of the closet.
But plot-wise... it's cliché, contrived, and just bad. Obviously a vehicle for various songs to have a 'new' context. So let's excuse the plot, and the music. What are we left with? Visual images. Ah, yes. Well, again, it's all subjective. You like watching Apple Ipod commercials for a few hours straight? Then this is your film. It's as if the director told these actors "Just act wide eyed and amazed, and smile vapidly at everything, and maybe that'll be infectious enough..."... There are nice enough images, but they've all been done before, and, frankly, better. Woo-hooo, bombs that look like strawberries. This is meaningful. Sure. Oh, hey, look, the world dissolved and they're all staring blankly at the blue sky. Wow. Never seen that before. Gee, I wonder what the visualization of an LSD trip is like.... Oh, right, inverted colors. Sepia trippy, woo-hooo.
Why was this film made? Because in the mind of studio execs, it's a surefire sale, and how could it suck? Now we know. Just add Bono. And a scary Joe Cocker.
If you're going to watch this one, have the fast-forward button ready. It'll make the whole process less painful.