Marvelously entertaining!

Rating: 10/10 (13 June 2007)

Tom Hanks got his early start in television, entertaining audiences in the "classic" sitcom "Bosom Buddies". He then moved to the big screen, nabbing an Oscar nod for his role in "Big" and becoming only the 2nd actor in history to win back-to-back Best Actor Oscars for his roles in "Philadelphia" and "Forrest Gump". There are very few people who can succeed in acting on television, acting in movies, and making movies.
I am glad to say that Tom Hanks is one of them.
In his first attempt at directing a movie, Hanks brings us a flat-out fun story of a small rock group who climb the charts of success, only to fall flat just as quick as they rose. The movie has everything: the comedic timing of lines delivered by Steve Zahn and Hanks himself make us laugh without entirely turning the movie into a silly comedy. There are dramatic moments with Johnathon Schaech's character without turning the movie into a drama, and there is music galore without turning the movie into a musical. Everything is wonderfully balanced, not one element overpowers the other, and it comes across as an entertaining film.
With a movie like this, certain elements need to be executed perfectly in order for it to work. When you make a movie that follows the experiences of a group of teenagers, you need to be able to like the characters. I don't know if you'll find a much more likable character than Guy Patterson, an easy-going jazz lover who stumbles into the band by accident, then drives their climb to success with a simple change of tempo. You need to make it fun without being cliché, so keeping the band from reaching #1 on the charts is a smart move. And with any movie with a song as the centerpiece, you need to like the song. "That Thing You Do!" could be one of the catchiest songs to come out of any movie in recent memory, and the other songs that you hear over the course of the movie are entertaining, as well. When you can combine the star power of Tom Hanks and Liv Tyler with the music, magic, and sheer entertainment of this movie, you can't possibly go wrong. 9/10