Yellow Submarine Movie Review

I love animation. Though it seems that most animators choose to animate objective reality. There’s nothing wrong with that, but Disney showed us with Fantasia (1940) that anything can be animated. Fantasia showed us abstract moving shapes and images that were strange but pleasant to behold. The only other movie I can think of that animates abstract art is Yellow Submarine (1968).

The tranquil paradise of Pepperland is protected by Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by performing music. When the land falls under attack by The Blue Meanies, the band is trapped inside a music-proof bubble. The Blue Meanies continue the attack and in so doing drain Pepperland of color and joy. Captain Fred (Lance Percival) manages to escape in a yellow submarine and travels to Liverpool seeking help. He finds Ringo (Paul Angelis) aimlessly wandering around, whom he persuades to help save Pepperland. They round up Ringo’s “mates”, John (John Clive),  George (Peter Batten), and Paul (Geoffrey Hughes). They set out for Pepperland in the yellow submarine, passing many strange and bizarre regions such as The Sea of Time, The Sea of Monsters, and The Sea of Nothing, where they meet another friend, Jeremy Hilary Boob, Ph.D (Dick Emery) Learning that The Blue Meanies are repelled by music, The Fab Four retaliates against Pepperland’s oppressors using classic titles by The Beatles.

I once had a Beatles themed birthday party where I served a 6-foot “Yellow Submarine” sandwich, we watched Yellow Submarine, and played The Beatles: Rock Band. As we watched the movie, my cousin asked, “Do you need to be high to get this movie?” I must respond with an empathic “No!” Yes, this movie is full of some of the strangest imagery I’ve ever seen in a movie, and I suspect that’s what confuses some viewers. We’re accustomed to seeing reality represented in movies, even animated features which quite literally could animate anything. Yellow Submarine takes a bold step by actually showing us anything; abstract art is shown in vivid color and it is quite eye-catching to behold. Recreational pharmaceuticals may alter your viewing of Yellow Submarine, but I don’t recommend it; I enjoyed the animation just fine without it.

Yellow Submarine is a landmark in the development of animation. Some of the abstract visuals and characters presented to us have influenced contemporary cartoons. The Chief Blue Meanie was a basis for The Gromble in Nickelodeon’s 1990’s cartoon series, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters as well as HIM in Cartoon Network’s series The Powerpuff Girls. I’ve seen The Sea of Holes represented in various cartoons like Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, and probably influenced Valve Corporation’s hit video game Portal to some degree. Yellow Submarine is worth watching, if for no other reason than to see where other media drew their influence.

As a product of both the 1960’s and The Beatles, Yellow Submarine has a lot of 1960’s cultural influences, psychedelic animation aside. The aged Lord Mayor of Pepperland refuses to believe that The Blue Meanies would invade until they are upon him. His lack of understanding and acknowledgement of his surroundings represents the hippie views of the older generation. Jeremy represents the pseudo-intellectuals toiling away with their old values of science, literature, and art; he’s not is really up with the times and the “higher thinking” that the younger countercultural generation believed it brought. The Beatles bring salvation to Pepperland through their modern music and messages of love; a very hippie notion, indeed. The Blue Meanies, of course, representing war, hate, and bullying in general are generic villains, but are still influenced by 1960’s concepts and values.

Yellow Submarine is a totally weird, but fun animated movie that has had a great deal of cultural impact. It’s full of classic Beatles songs and groaner puns. This is a nice, clean movie that even the youngest of audiences could appreciate. The surrealist abstract art animation would probably dissuade some viewers, and understandably so. This movie is pretty unique as far as art direction goes. It’s so different even today, that I could easily understand some viewers thinking they would need to be high in order to appreciate the film (but again, I don’t recommend it). Having said that, I think the movie is worth seeing at least once if you can find a copy, but it’s certainly not for everyone. Most of my party guests didn’t care for it and wanted to return to playing Rock Band.

Take a look at the trailer to see what kind of surreal visuals you can expect in Yellow Submarine.

Can you think of another movie that use abstract art? What was it? Comment below and tell me what you thought.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice Movie Review

In the wondrous world of marketing, a title becomes grounds for several different media types. For example, the book Eragon by Christopher Paolini hit shelves in 2003, and then a movie hit theaters in 2006; then in the wake of the movie an Eragon video game was released on several game systems. Do not play video games based on a movie based on a book; they are all lousy! I have never before seen a chain of “based on” titles that originated with 18^th century classical music. The Sorcerer's Apprentice, directed by Jon Turteltaub, is a movie based on Disney’s Fantasia (1940) segment, which was based on a late 1890s symphonic poem by Paul Dukas and the 1797 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ballad.

The story starts off in 740 AD when one of Merlin’s apprentices, Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina), betrays Merlin and joins evil sorceress Morgana le Fay (Alice Krige). Morgana mortally wounds Merlin before being stopped by another apprentice, Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage), who imprisons Morgana in the Grimhold, a magic prison similar to a nesting doll. Before dying, Merlin gives Balthazar a dragon ring that will identify the Prime Merlinean, Merlin's successor who will be the only one able to defeat Morgana. Throughout history Balthazar imprisons other Morganians, including Horvath, into successive layers on the Grimhold while searching for Merlin’s successor. Balthazar finally finds him in 2010, a young physics student named Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel). Dave had accidentally released Horvath from the Grimhold a few years prior, and he now hunts down Dave to locate the Grimhold and release Morgana. Should Morgana be released, she intends to revive all the dead Morganians and destroy the world. Balthazar must find the Grimhold before Horvath does, and train Dave in the ways of science and magic so that Dave can become a true sorcerer and save the world.

This movie is so dreadfully formulaic that attempting to expound upon the characters or storyline would be redundant. It’s almost as though Disney has this one story and set of characters that they keep using for different movies. You can accurately predict what each scene will accomplish and even what the following scene will be.  Seriously, you have seen this movie and these characters before. I’m deliriously in love with the idea of fantasy elements in a modern world setting, and this movie does have that going for it. Horvath was a pretty nasty villain, but with the movie being rated PG. You know he’s not really going to follow through with his dastardly threats; people rarely die in PG movies. One of the better parts of the movie was when Dave tries to bring to life some brooms and mops to clean his physics lab, which has similar results to Mickey Mouse’s dilemma in Fantasia. This whole movie concept may have started with the idea of making a live action adaptation of that Mickey Mouse classic.

So why watch The Sorcerer’s Apprentice? Because it is really fun! The story and characters were terrible, but the visual effects were highly creative and entertaining. There was a constantly changing variety of magic being used; some were subtle like unfolding a gigantic spell book from a tiny pocket size square, to transforming a Chinatown Dragon Dance puppet into a real dragon. It was very exciting. I also liked how magic was developed as being similar to science. To get something to light up in flames, you had to focus on making the molecules speed up, creating heat, which sets something on fire. My favorite scene was the chase scene through New York City; there were creative, unexpected magical stunts were thrown at each other at rapid-fire speeds. The movie kept you guessing as to what abstract visuals they were going to pull on each other next. That kept the movie fresh and fun to watch.

This movie was not a profound example of meaningful cinema. The story and characters in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice were really weak, but the creative implementation of magic kept it interesting and fun. It was predictable, but the visuals kept you guessing. This is a great movie for a family movie night; kids will love it and adults will enjoy it too, if they aren’t too put off by the formulaic storytelling. It’s a renter, but I may get a copy just because I like fantasy in a modern setting so much.


Is there a movie you’ve seen that was good only because the special effects were impressive? What was it? Comment below and tell me all about it!