Well, I thought this was awfulbut

Rating: 5/10 (23 September 2007)

I also thought "Hairspray" was awful. So draw your conclusions from that. In fairness, it's the producers that let this project proceed on any given day who are at fault. There is no merit to making this film
Still...the performers are all remarkable. And of course, they're singing some of the best popular music ever written. If you can ignore some of the rest of the stupidity on display, there are great rewards.
If you're going to "Mamma Mee-a-fie" the Beatles canon, couldn't you come up with something less inane than this? And if not, copying (in some cases, stealing) the work of others really puts the audience in an uncomfortable position. The people responsible for "Moulin Rouge," "High School Musical," "The Doors," "The Wiz" AND "The Wizard of Oz," "Platoon," "Hair," "Rent," "Grease," "A Hard Day's Night," "Tommy," (although there's nothing as campy fun as Ann-Margaret in a vat of pork 'n beans, "She's So Heavy" comes close) can all claim their work is being, uh, reused here.
You'd think someone who is as an original an artist a Julie Taymour could have come up with her own ideassomething besides synchronized bowling? (Now there's a sport the Olympics needs.) I found it offensive to take historical tragedy (like the assassination of Dr. King, the death of soldiers in Vietnam, the Watts riots, the killings at Kent state, the draft protesters, the activities of the Weathermen and Black Panthers, etc.) to score emotional points in a film that's unworthy of any of the material it bastardizes.
Most of it made me cringe; some of it was quite effective (the "Let It Be" sequence; "Revolution" is maybe the only song put in its proper context; "Because" is suitably dreamy; "Dear Prudence" is cleverly staged and performed). But you sit there waiting for the next punch in the gut like "When is the awful moment coming when someone says, 'Hey! Jude, '?" I don't think you need to name a character Prudence or Jude or Max or Lucy for the songs to work. It assumes, perhaps, we're as stupid as the people who made this.
If Taymour and the audience aren't redeemed, the performers are. The Beatles, god bless 'em, can take care of themselves. They're music is not only strong enough to drift across the universe, it can survive tripe like this.