servewithchips' Review of Yellow Submarine

When the Blue Meanies attack Pepperland, it's John, Paul, George, and Ringo to the rescue in this colorful (likely drug inspires) romp.

The film opens in the colorful and cartoony Pepperland. The music-hating Meanies attack with their big blue flying glove turning the townspeople to stone. Fred the Pepperlanderer jumps aboard a flying yellow submarine and heads to Liverpool, a gray and dreary land with much more angular reality-based designs in which the yellow sub sticks out like a sore thumb. The sub captain finds the Beatles in their mansion with hundred of doors (which houses the likes of yellow elephants, Frankenstein's monster, King Kong, and locomotives). Aboard the SS Yellow Sub, The Fab Four sail the sea of time (where they sprout old man beards and where each second gets its own animated visual), sea of science, sea of monsters (complete with a "university" of fish, giant kinky boots, and two-eyed cyclops), sea of nothing, sea of heads, and sea of holes all with crazy imaginative and distinct visuals ranging in inspiration from MC Escher to Salvador Dali. They finally arrive in Pepperland, where the pace does slow a bit, and they impersonate Sgt. Pepper's band, and ultimately establish peace in the land (love is stronger than glove).

The film includes such hits as the titular Yellow Submarine, Eleanor Rigby, All Together Now, When I'm 64, Only a Northern Song, Nowhere Man, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, All You Need is Love, Hey Bulldog, and It's All Too Much.

While the actual movie story is pretty terrible as is the animation quality, that's not really the point. The visuals are insanely brilliant and creatively mesmerizing. This is really a quintessential piece of 1960's psychedelic art, a modern Alice in Wonderland. Add to the visuals classic Beatles tunes, and count me entertained to the tune of an A-.