Missed opportunities

Rating: 3/10 (22 July 2019)

What if... the Beatles songs hadn't been published until today? Would they have the same impact in 2019? The songs were all written in the 60s and 70s, in times of free love, anarchy, rebellion, and also without much musical competition (apart from the Stones). Would they have the same success today, detached from this social context? I have my doubts. In addition, they were written and performed by 4 wild, charismatic and talented musicians - attributes that the main character in this film completely lacks (on a side note: the typical polyphonic Beatles choruses are only recorded monophonically by him... what a mess!)
Back to the actual movie: It lacks everything: logic, depth, an interesting story, good characters... Even in a phantasy premise, a certain conclusiveness could be expected. If the Beatles never existed, why do the other 2 people remember them? So they existed anyway? And if John Lennon is still alive but has never been a musician, who wrote the songs? And where are the other three? Also, Harry Potter, Coke, cigarettes got lost in oblivion - a random sequence of popular western world consumer goods? Not that it matters - they mention it, and forget it again.
And the power failure / accident at the beginning: The bus has no head lights on during the crash - which makes no sense, because the bus is run by fuel, not electricity. But who cares...
The main character has the depth of a sheet of paper, zero charisma, is a professional loser, still lives with his parents, has nothing to tell - and suddenly, he is supposed to come up with those amazing lyrics? And everyone buys it? A little credibility has never hurt. Throughout the film, Jack doesn't evolve, he doesn't make any decisions himself, but is constantly thrown back and forth by fate and circumstances. No backbone, no will of his own, nothing. But Ellie falls head over heels for him - why? And after she leaves him, she replaces him with an equally lax loser. What does that say about her?
Oh, and the parents: Completely meaningless roles. They don't care about their son whatsoever, even when he suddenly becomes a world celebrity, they're more interested by the tuna sandwiches than him. The father is familiar with Ed Sheeran, but can't find the pickels in his own kitchen? Come on! Is that simply to show us that Jack is a descendent of a loser family? Rocky and the Kate McKinnon character are just unbearable in their slapstick superficiality.
The fact they abused the Beatles tunes and lyrics for this nonsense is almost a sacrilege. Not that they really mattered. While in Mamma Mia, the songs were meaningfully embedded in the story, here the lyrics are completely irrelevant: they could have interchanged them or used any other tunes from any other act, without affecting the story whatsoever.
Too bad, they could have made something nice out of a really interesting idea. But they pretty much missed every opportunity they had.