Simply dreadful. Don't waste your time or money.

Rating: 1/10 (16 October 2007)

This was, by far, one of the worst movies I've seen in a long time.
*Also, I discuss the ending, but it is not a spoiler, since it's a completely obvious and predictable finish to the film.*
The characters were shallow, the plot was disjointed, the visuals were over-stimulating, the actors were wooden, and there seemed to be a heavy dependence on subtle Beatles in-jokes.
Case in point: The character of "Prudence" seems to exist for no other reason than as an excuse for the other characters to sing "Dear Prudence." She's introduced in a visually silly scene with the football players, the leads sing her out of the closet, and then she disappears.
It seems to me that this movie's facile, clichéd love-story plot was written around the need for Julie Taymor to jam THIRTY ONE Beatles tunes in a movie, instead of writing the story and adding songs later.
Many of the songs seemed superfluous, adding nothing to the story or character development, such as "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" and "Because."
I especially have problems with Evan Rachel Wood, whose lovely voice was completely overshadowed by her total lack of acting ability.
Because of it's lack of substance, the film actually conveyed the feeling of the Vietnam War very well: I thought we'd never get out of the theatre it was so long.
Finally, the movie ended in the sappiest, kitschiest way possible, with the police stopping through the power of love, and Jude and Lucy finding each other again and falling head over heels in blissful ecstasy. If Taymor had really wanted to capture the essence of the sixties, the ending would have been somber. There was nothing happy about the way that decade ended, with our country still embroiled in war, our President assassinated, and the death of the Flower Generation.
This film was very ambitious, but a film can't get by on ambition alone.
The only song I thought was perfectly executed was the surreal and terrifying draft scene, brilliantly set to "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." Other than that, the treatment of the source material was magnificently disappointing. It also loses points for include such a self- righteous, pompous ass as Bono (Who for some reason, all of my friends agreed, looked strangely like Robin Williams).
All in all, I'd say this movie made a much better trailer than an actual film. I'd recommend that the twelve dollars of ticket money that would be wasted on this movie be put to good use by being used to purchase "Abbey Road", "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", or the "White Album" (actually titled "The Beatles"), and really enjoying the music of the The Beatles like they intended, on an album, not in some ridiculous parody of the Sixties.