Cheap - a fade copy of sixties movies

Rating: 5/10 (13 June 2008)

Only young or very young people could love this movie. It is superficial, no originality, a fade copy of sixties movies. In England a bunch of smart producers took ABBA's music and put together a stupid story Mamma Mia. Here very talented people took the Beattles' music and put together a movie. I really hope it is not a new fashion. The movie itself is a salad of things we saw in Help, Mystery Magic Tour, Easy Rider, Aquarius, and a hundred other movies and video clips. Some characters are insipid people based on Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, or just "Prudence that came in through the bathroom window". Like Prudence the name of the main character is Jude so there is no big intellectual effort to link the movie with the music. In general, the association of the story with the music is cheap. But the main question is really why Vietnam and the sixties? Is Julie Taymor afraid to touch issues such as Iraq and Bush's society? Too controversial for 2006? She did a good job in Frida. Is she not ready to go far from that? I must confess the story is not stupid as Mamma Mia, the movie itself is very beautiful and the music performance is impressive. However, even so, the whole thing left a bad taste. Cheap.