watching movies one cup at a time

I was really looking forward to this movie. I liked what the director Julie Taymor did with Frida and this looked interesting and vibrant. It got some good reviews but I never made it to the theaters to see it. So I was looking forward to the DVD.

Well… I can’t say it’s bad. But I can’t say it’s good either. There are definitely some interesting visuals in here and some exciting musical numbers. But really I just got kind of bored with it. It kind of just stumbled along looking for excuses to throw in Beatles songs. There is a character named Prudence who I felt only existed so they could have a moment and sing “Dear Prudence.” And everyone’s name is like that. It’s like some big Beatles fan wet dream.

Now I love the Beatles. They made phenomenal music. But I wasn’t really feeling this mash-up version. It just didn’t have enough real story. I didn’t care about any of the characters and I didn’t care what happened next. I’m sure they were going to bump into someone named Elanor just so they could sing “Elanor Rigby” to her. Yawn.

And then they started having all these dumb cameos. Bono shows up about half-way pretending to be some Ken Kesey type guru/hippie dude. Bono, now there’s a guy who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “subtle.” His acting style is no different than his stage presence. Great for a stadium of 20,000 fans, a little overblown for a small movie like this. I couldn’t help but think back to that horrible 70s movie Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. Horrible film with lots of pointless star cameos that pillaged the Beatles catalog with no connection to the actual Beatles musicians themselves. This movie by no means sinks to that level, but I can’t say I wasn’t reminded of it. And that ain’t a good thing.

Plus through in a little hippy-dippy Hair influence and a really original looking film starts to feel really unoriginal. Again, not a bad movie. Just not as good as I expected.