Disclaimer: I'm giving this movie a review as if I had no beef with musicals. And if there is another topic on here, too bad. I lost the search link.

TOTALLY should have done more research as to what type of movie it was before I saw it.

My friend was like "yo let's go see it." and I was like "yo what it about?" and he's like "the 60's and the beatles" SO IT MUST BE GOOD, RIGHT???

NOPE.

It was a musical. If you love musicals and the 60's, along with Beatles' remakes, then you'll love this movie. I, personally, do not like musicals at all, which is a hindrance sometimes with my friends since they are all like "<3 musicals" and "<3 moulin rouge" and some are "<33333333333333 high school musical."

So when it first started and the main dude, Jude, was like "blah blah a girl u want so bad it makes u sorry" I was like "crap" but then I was like "hope this movie goes all psychadellic on me." There were parts where you could feel the psychadelia occurring, but it should have been pushed more, imo.

Pretty much every character in the film had a name significant to a Beatles song. As I mentioned before, the main character is named Jude, his lover was Lucy, and there was a character named Prudence in the film.

It seems like the movie was a big deal to a lot of musicians and actors, since even big-time stars were playing the smallest of roles. Some model chick who was some movie in the past played a hot nurse who acted as if she were doing all the patients and even BONO, of U2, played a small part in the film as a character named "Dr. Robert" (which is also a name in some Beatles song, I'm sure... I just can't remember which one)

I thought the movie would touch more on the "troubles" in the 60's, but when you have a main character from Liverpool in the US during a major time in the US's history, there isn't going to be too much emotional strife on his part with the events going on in the film. Now, the war affects his friends/lovers in the film since his best friend, Max, is drafted and his lover, Lucy, ends up becoming some anti-war activist. But he is emotionally affected by the war, directly.

It was weird though, since all the songs sung were Beatles songs, but the closest thing to some "huge, megaband" in the film was this band that Jude and Max watch grow (pretty much, their landlord is some singer and she gets this cool black dude, who I think was supposed to be Jimi Hendrix as a guitarist, and they grow and become a well-known group. Of course, the UK was huge with bands in the 60's, I believe, so that could have also been explored too...).

Now, story and stuff obviously play a large role for my liking of a movie, but the cinematography is a thing I take TO DA COURT. During a movie, I not only like to be able to soak in the story but look at a camera angle/placement of characters in a scene. I usually respect a movie if it uses DA RULE OF THREES (pretty much, there are like 9 spots that make a movie look prettier if you put characters there... watch the Royal Tenenbaums if you want to get a very nice representation of this cinematography GENIUS). The lighting/shadow etc. blah blah blah was incredible. Many times, things looked surreal and angelic, even.

All in all, despite all of the useless characters, you can spend a few bucks and productively spend 2 hours watching this film. Personally, the fact that it was a musical turned me off, but as a musical, it stood out as a pretty solid one without overdoing crappy stereotypes.