I guess to give this one credit it wasn't as bad as (a) I thought it would be or (b) it could have been. But it wasn't all that good. Thank god they didn't really slaughter the Beatles (but they didn't do anything revolutionary with the songs either--especially considering what a fantastic job Love has done). The acting was ok, nothing special.
What went awry was the trippy, have to have dropped acid to sort them out, artsy, technicolor sequences with odd characters and wild-eyed close-ups. That didn't work for me. What else didn't work was naming the characters after those in the songs and then trying to be clever about the use of said songs (ex: "Dear Prudence" to get Prudence to come out of a closet she's locked herself in; "Hey Jude" to get said character to chase after the girl (Lucy) he loves). Also not working? Bono in the movie at all and then that his "American" accent is just a really very poor version of Christian Slater's Jack Nicholson. And, despite my liking Eddie Izzard, I am not a fan of the "Mr. Kite" sequence. Not one bit.
What was to the film's partial credit but just couldn't work is that Taymor just wanted too much in the film. She could have cut several characters (Prudence, for example) without losing anything (except that trite closet scene). Bono's Dr. Robert could have been cut. And, she tried too hard to squeeze too much in to get a feel for the time. I could have done without caricatures of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, for example.
What was a real treat? Joe Cocker making a cameo and singing "Come Together" and, actually, the singer who played Sadie the Janis Joplin doppelganger singing--she did fantastic versions of "Helter Skelter" and "Don't Let Me Down."
So I'm a little torn about this one. It's not contemptible. But it's not altogether a pleasant viewing experience either. You won't miss much if you don't see it but it's not a complete waste of time either.
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