When You Have Nine Hours to Kill

 

Well, this is by far the longest movie I have ever reviewed.   Clocking in at 9 hours or maybe 9 days.   I lost count.  By the midway point, I was groggy.

You may have heard that, on Thanksgiving weekend, Disney Plus dropped this major documentary about the Beatles' last album and public performance.  It seems every moment of this process back in January 1969 was filmed for posterity and "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson is the latest to make sense of it all.

If Jackson used a film editor, that person might have fifth grade homework because nothing ever seems to wind up on the cutting room floor.   Indeed, this whole story could have been told in one third of the time.   That, of course, would have required several of the two dozen renditions of "Get Back" be excised.

This was the Beatles swan song.   All of them were itching to move on.   John Lennon was already tied up with Yoko Oh No.   In every frame that John occupies, she sits right next to him...saying nothing.    At one point, she gets up to sing and every sick cat in London shows up at the door.   Indeed, John comes off as a jerk, while Paul and Ringo seem to be the most grounded.   Because this is siphoned off into three parts, the first cliffhanger is when George quits the band.  Temporarily.   It all really amounts to nothing because, at this length, Jackson has even managed to do the unthinkable.  He makes the Beatles boring!

At one point, the Beatles are going to make their last public performance in Egypt.  Ultimately, in the third installment, they wind up playing up on the roof of Apple Records.   This results in the truly most interesting part of the documentary when two young constables show up because neighbors are complaining about the noise.

I know Beatle fans were clamoring to see this.  And I guess I can understand it.  But six hours less of nothing would have resulted in three hours of something.

LEN'S RATING:  Two stars.

Dinner last night:  Leftover Chinese food.