Magical Mystery Tour

Magical Mystery Tour
BBC
December 26, 1967
TV-Movie, Musical, Fantasy
VHS
C+

It's easy to see why critics blasted this 48 years ago, and why many fans have said, "It's not that bad."  It's always tricky to be objective about the Beatles, and gosh knows I've seen this multiple times, although not recently.  I think it remains an incoherent mess with some good songs in it, including a show-stopper by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band.  In evaluating it now, I tried to just simply grade how entertaining it is, and I must admit that even the best songs are not filmed terribly well, and there's more filler in the film (including dream sequences) than I remembered.  I still would rather watch this than Help, and not just because it's shorter.

The genre labels are the best I can do: it's definitely a musical, the wizards make it fantasy, and it is a movie made for television.  It has been shown theatrically, but not till much later, unlike the situation with, for instance, Enchanted April, which was made for TV but got a big-screen release.