Let it be

Rating: 3/10 (12 January 2008)

I think you could make a better movie about how Julie Taymor got to be so hip. How does someone get to be such a critics and (sheepy) fans favorite? If only her work measured up to the reverence.
This big, commercial, stupid, dazzling/dull film might work for the middle brows and high school kids, but it's pretty terrible. An epic for the post video, ADD generation, it goes nowhere slow.
The Beatles songbook, for better or worse, will be endlessly mined for all sorts of projects for years to come; it's brand power an unstoppable force. But Taymor pretty much rattles off the standard 60's clichés, with a modestly surprising song choice here and there. Soon enough, you'll be wishing you were listening to the records. Eddie Izard challenges Steve Martin's big number in "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" for winch inducing honors. Rachel Wood makes a dull, if pretty, heroine.
It's not too bad at first; and just seems a peppy repackaging of the music for the Hillary Duff set. But the attractive cast ( weren't there any ugly people in the sixties?) can't ring much out of the non-story, and after 90 minutes you'll be quoting John at the end of "Stawberry Fields" ("I'm very bored").