Yellow Submarine

1968 animated musical

Rating: 14/20 (Abbey: 20/20; Dylan: 2/20)

Plot: Pepperland is overrun by Blue Meanies, and it's up to Captain Fred to find help. He travels via title vehicle and gets the Beatles to help out. After many psychedelic adventures, they find their way back to Pepperland to fight off the Blue Meanies and their minions in the only way they know how--rock 'n' roll!

Dylan: "This is the worst movie ever made."

This is nowhere close to perfect, but it's always entertaining. This is stuffed with ideas, and sometimes the animation can't catch up with the sheer amount of them. There's so much going on on-screen at the same time that your eyes also have trouble keeping up. I guess this lends a bit of rewatchability to it, but it's also headache inducing. There are moments of sublimity, however. I love the "Eleanor Rigby" sequence. I really like the "Sea of Monsters" sequence, too. The biggest problem is that it needs to be 20 minutes shorter. There's a big fight at the end, the Beatles sing "All You Need Is Love" and get rid of the giant blue glove, and the movie's at a logical stopping place. But then it goes on for another 20 minutes with a couple of lesser songs. Most of the songs actually seem forced into the story of the movie, but individually, they mostly work pretty well as music videos. The main Blue Meanie, by the way, has to be the most flamboyantly gay character in movie history.

I had to trick Abbey into watching this instead of Beauty and the Beast or Spy Kids by getting out my Yellow Submarine action figures.