This is a full length animated cartoon in which the prime factor is the appearance of the Beatles in caricature form. Here are all the ingredients of a novel entertainment.
Story consists of a fantastic voyage in a yellow submarine thru sky and sea, manned by the skipper, and The Beatles, to Pepperland where the inhabitants are up against thugs known as the Blue Meanies.
Time travel, science fiction, outer space, monsters, war and their own idiom of pop music are all taken for a ride in figments of fevered imaginations during which the Beatles come up against some odd specimens and situations.
The Beatles’ flat Merseyside tones make good contrast to the surrounding frenzy.
Dialog is mostly puns and throwaway gags. It remains deliberately corny at times and never ventures out of its depth in flirtations with time, space and philosophy.
Unlike Disney the film makes no concession to sentiment. Characters are mostly matter-of-fact, grotesque and anti-heroic and tend to be harsh, angular and intro’d for shock effect rather than any winsome qualities.
