Dan Richman

It is a feel-good movie, yes, but from a legal point of view it is absurd. Virtually nothing of the courtroom exchanges in the movie could or would actually take place, because they are utterly irrelevant to the legal matter at hand. Furthermore, the absurdly exorbitant damages awarded would undoubtedly be reduced on appeal. These glaring shortcomings ruined the movie for me.

Tedious and shocking. Infuriating repetition of mediocre songs. Even if you like the tunes on "Abbey Road," you will hate them by the time this eight-hour monster is over. It could have been a decent two-hour movie with some editing. It is cool to see songs being born in front of our eyes. Non-stop mugging and showing off by Paul and John. George emerges as a sympathetic character whose distinctive musical ideas are largely ignored or disdained -- it's painful to watch. Ringo comes off as the merely competent drummer and endlessly patient band member he was. Shocking absence of studio discipline and even rudimentary language about how songs are put together -- revealed by inarticulate babbling like "the part with duh-duh goes after the part with wah-wah." Um -- how about concepts like A part, refrain, break? Or . . . charts?? And senseless conversation in general that's hard to endure. Then there's Yoko's (fortunately rare) hideous wailing into the microphone. A good chance to prepare an elaborate snack with the TV muted. Yes, they were all under 30. But it's amazing to me how the Beatles came up with the material they did given what is revealed of them in this documentary.