The Beatles: Rock Band – The Early Years

Nowhere Boy - Sam Taylor-Wood

A massive Beatles fan, been playing Beatles Rock Band, listen to the early albums like Please Please Me, watched the documentaries about the band from the beginning and have even spent an evening on Wikipedia just researching every detail about the band and then i saw this, recently released on DVD, the early life of John Lennon, played by Kick-Ass himself, Aaron Johnson, and how he began the band The Quarrymen. I knew it had received some good reviews, and was expecting an accurate, funny, interesting story in how Lennon became the man he was, and how he met Paul McCartney and the rest of the band. I was expecting some good music, some entertainment, and some light hearted fun. Unfortunately i came away unhappy and not fulfilled in filling the huge gap of information that i wanted to receive in the way of John’s upbringing and him becoming John mother flipping Lennon.

The story follows John as he lives with his Dad and his girlfriend whilst he is at school. The relationship he had with his Dad was very special, you can see the deep emotional love they had for each other and how the Dad influenced John into becoming a musician. After the Dad dies early in the film, sorry for the spoilers, John becomes a tearaway, meeting his biological mother and becoming close to her whilst becoming further away from the woman he lived with, his step-mother. He flunks at school and after listening to new types of music, wants to form a band with a few of his friends to get money, to get famous and to get girls. He successfully forms a band, and they play well together, but with more people going to see them perform, fellow musicians also want in, and beg to play with the band, one of these people is the one and only Paul McCartney. They join forces in the band, and you can instantly see the connection and how they perform excellently together, even from an earlier age and i think the actors they got to play these two were spot on, Aaron Johnson as John Lennon, and Thomas Sangster as Paul McCartney, even though Sangster is very weedy at that age.

So overall, it’s a disappointing film, and i was expecting a lot better as what the reviews beckoned for it to be, but sadly, some reviews are utter shit sometimes, and you can’t always believe what you read I guess.

5/10

Simon Childs