Come for the Beatles music, stay for Ed Sheeran's acting

Rating: 4/10 (11 December 2019)

At times, Yesterday's glorious goofiness and Danny Boyle's professional gloss make this downright charming (getting to feature the best melodies ever written isn't a hindrance either, duh). Unfortunately, these times are few and far between. The insanity of this plot never needed a full explanation. Even attempting one would surely be tedious if not downright impossible. But the complete emptiness behind the central question (WHY did all but three humans on Earth suddenly have no recollection of the Beatles) doesn't cut it either. Oh, and the inane detail that (at least) three other entities/concepts (Coca-Cola, cigarettes and Harry Potter) are missing in this dimension as well is just pure frustration (and potentially gross, misguided product placement? yuck).
Not that any of that wasn't predictable from the trailer; it all checked out. So allow me to answer my own WHY: why did I find myself on a Monday afternoon indulging in a film that I assumed would be more bad than good on a long summer lunch break in a movie theater I used to frequent all the time and now has a failing air conditioning system so loud the pressure in my head would change every 10-15 minutes when it kicked on? Because this was my idea.
I mean, quite literally: the plot for Yesterday was something I have thought about in detail many times over the last decade or so. This is not to say the thought amounted to a film spec or anything of that ilk. It was more of a rhetorical proposition I considered personally. Something along the lines of: if this happened to me, would I be able to recreate and capitalize on/odd this "new" music? And that still feels like an interesting concept which, in fact, the film does briefly touch upon. But the wheels come off rather fast. Instead we get Ed Sheeran (who can't act) in a much bigger role than is necessary; Kate McKinnon (who can't reign it) providing unnecessary and out of place comic relief that came off as if she was acting in an entirely different movie; a hamfisted love story; bad/inconsistent intertitle graphic design; an alternative history where John Lennon is an old recluse/fisherman (?) that only further convolutes what little structure this device is still clinging to; etc etc etc.
It was still early afternoon when I left the theater. Much of the day remained. I didn't even get around to the teeth. Why did they make such a big deal out of the bus knocking out his two front teeth?! (Something about the British and their teeth?? I do not know.)