Misconceived homage ends up being a travesty that should be avoided by all Beatles or movie fans

Rating: 3/10 (21 January 2009)

I have to admit, I went into this much against my better judgment, and probably saw it for one of the shallowest of all reasons: the title. The title song might be my favorite Beatles song, certainly it's high on the list, and I thought, any film that makes a big deal out of one of the Fab Four's most musically innovative songs can't be all bad...
Boy was I wrong. I really have no idea how much the theatrical version of the film that I saw was tinkered with against Taymor's wishes, how "compromised" it was, but from my perspective this was a horribly misconceived idea right from the get-go. Graft songs by the mostly apolitical, rather surreal and very British Beatles onto a story involving mostly American characters fighting the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement; have most of the songs integrated into the film in a completely literal and obvious way; don't reference the musical nature of the 60s at all otherwise except by showing a Janis Joplin and a Jim Hendrix clone, thrown together with the English hero Jude (a poor working-class lad from Liverpool doncha know) and the love of his life, Lucy (in the Sky with Diamonds, of course). Throw in some Bay area psychedelia, obvious Grateful Dead/Furthur/Ken Kesey references, and you've got yourself a movie guaranteed to puzzle anybody even remotely acquainted with the era or the music, if not infuriate them.
It's not entirely terrible; I'm actually quite thankful that the filmmakers chose to use actors that could actually sing, and allow them to perform the music rather than post-dub actual Beatles performances (probably impossible) or covers by better-known musicians; and for the most part they do a credible job. None of the performances seems on its own a disaster, if none seem like brilliant interpretations either. And the cinematography was excellent throughout, though the dirty old England/bright and colorful USA seemed a bit of a "Wizard of Oz" metaphor to me which I don't think was intended.
But ultimately, this is an incredibly stupid film that insults its audience and insults the music of the most important cultural force of the last century, by dumbing it down to the point where the average 5-year-old will make the connections. Throughout the film music is used, not as a counterpoint or an impressionistic addition to the plot, but as the plot itself; the storyline is built around the songs, and thus seems utterly trite and phony, and simple. Great as the Beatles were, their lyrics if just read on paper aren't always masterful, and they weren't primarily storytellers. I could imagine someone constructing a movie-world from the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen, or possibly Dylan, but Lennon-McCartney's vision isn't terribly cinematic and the film paints nearly every scene with such blunt strokes as "She came in through the bathroom window" -- just after a major character has done so. Shortly afterward the down and miserable Prudence is called upon to "come out and play"; when Jude's girlfriend takes up with an antiwar activist and Jude gets upset, he storms the hippies' offices with "You Say You Want a Revolution." There are a few songs that seem to fit better, to offer more of an aside to the action or to just express the inner thoughts of a character in repose -- "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" sung while Jude is in exile back in England, worked pretty well. On the whole though, this is shallow, foolish and simpleminded, and the enthusiasm of the actors/singers just can't carry the day. Theatrical viewing.