Yellow Submarine

"Yellow Submarine" is one of the strangest, most surreal animated films that I've ever seen. I love the Beatles, and seeing this tribute to their music was fascinating. The songs were excellent, the animation was unusual (especially the unforgettable "Elanor Rigby" scene), and the characters were a lot of fun, including the eccentric Jeremy and the Chief Meanie.

The dialogue itself is cheeky and has some very clever one-liners. Old Fred's retelling of the the Blue Meanie invasion to the Fab Four remains a highly comical dialogue, and the final "battle" is simply bizarre. This is, without a doubt, a '60's movie. The messages and the visuals give you an idea of what it was like to live in that time, bombarding the viewer with some of the strangest and most imaginative visuals I had seen at the time. While the Beatles didn't provide their voices for the movie (outside a brief cameo at the end), the voice actors did an excellent job imitating the groups' mannerisms.

While it is said that the real journey is found in the travel, and not the destination, the actual trip to Pepperland takes up a huge majority of the story, providing a trip (in many senses of the word) that becomes less plot oriented and more of an animated musical showcase for the Beatles' music. While the music is excellent, this tends to make the pacing of the middle of the film drag significantly, becoming more an art piece than a story. In the closest comparison, "Yellow Submarine" becomes the "Fantasia" for the 1960's.

Despite a few quibbles here and there, I've remained fond of Yellow Submarine, its art style, and especially its music. All in all, a delightful film for Beatles fans and animation enthusiasts who have a taste for films that remain unique.