alfiecycling Being a lifelong Beatles fan, this review is difficult to compose. I was in grammar school when they were making gold records and I, like many of my contemporaries, felt the beauty of their music. So when it comes to films, they were nowhere near as successful. Let It Be is without question their worst movie. But is, however, a film that should be salvaged one fine day.Ringo temporarily quit during the White Album sessions and a few months later, George temporarily quit during the Let It Be sessions. That speaks volumes about the toxic problems they were experiencing and it shows in this reality-style film.Obviously their impromptu rooftop concert that ended with John's witty repartee, should not be missed.

arickandrews I first saw this film in my early teens, and later saw bits and pieces as parts of other Beatles documentaries such as Anthology. I own all the other legitimate Beatles films "Hard Days Night, Help, Yellow Submarine, Anthology" and have the blu ray of "Magical Mystery Tour" on order, but really wanted "Let it Be" as part of my Beatles collection and also to watch it for the first time in years. I found a DVD online and purchased it. Although the film quality may not be the best, it is one of the best documentaries I've seen and a very good Beatles film. It almost seems like a home movie.Watching the Beatles create "Let it Be" and "Abbey Road" songs is really something and the concert on the roof .... Wow.If you haven't seen this film and get a chance, don't pass it up.

Spondonman As a life-long Beatles fan don't expect objectivity here - I first saw this in the early 70's and found it riveting … and got the same feeling tonight. This was an early ordinary rockumentary about 4 ordinary yet very talented blokes in their late 20's at the peak of their creative powers, in the process of readjustment to being mere hairy bickering mortals again after experiencing a few years of quasi-godhood. "Mr. Epstein" was long dead although Paul was trying to fill his shoes, and their Apple Empire was shrinking. The Beatles almost on their own created intelligent pop/rock music, which imho has not moved on since 1969 where they left it. There have been many excellent innovative and intelligent rock bands that have come and gone since, many borrowing and adapting from the Beatles back catalogue – however I don't count the many cash-in rip-off bands such as Oasis. Has anyone since not ripped them off at some point? I've lost count of the number of times over the decades I've heard a "new" piece of music and said to myself "I've heard that before somewhere – ah yes, such and such by the Beatles". Apart from the quantum leaps in sound technology since then nothing of any lasting musical value has been added – there has been no progression. Led Zeppelin filled stadia – but did they fill billions of hearts? Queen was popular – but did they rule the world? Pop and rock music may have always been ephemeral, but along with Louis Armstrong, Bix Beiderbecke, Lata Mangeshkar, Frank Sinatra and Jimi Hendrix the Beatles weren't. Never mind about their timeless music, they even managed to look timeless while everyone else around them in here looked dated by the early '70's. God works in mysterious ways.John, Paul, George and Ringo got together first in Twickenham Studios then in the Apple basement in January 1969 to rehearse some new songs with the assistance of almost-5th Beatle Billy Preston (and occasionally actual-5th Beatle George Martin) and with the hope of playing live again sometime soon. Yoko (definitely not 5th Beatle) would have probably been on stage with them. As it turned out on they only made it to the Apple roof on 30th January, disturbing the peace of the police on the streets of London below. The Rolling Stone review of the film from 9th July 1970 that I remember so well was typically over-reverential but had some telling points – the first being how deliberately grainy the photography was which still can take some getting used to and that there was over 800 hours of footage from 4 cameras to edit down to the brief 80 minutes we got. How on Earth can it ever be properly remastered and will more ever be officially available in our lifetimes? Maybe we should also bear in mind that the film was to be called Get Back as a return to simplicity for the band, and that McCartney originally penned racist lyrics for this sublime song which thankfully weren't incorporated into any of the final versions. There's a lot of classic pop music in here – from their own then new stuff to rock'n'roll standards from the '50's, which the Beatles were in an ideal and unchallengeable position to translate for listeners both of the Old World of pop and the New World of rock that they left behind them.Highlights: A splendid cod version of Bessame Mucho from McCartney; a loving version of You Really Got A Hold On Me from Lennon; the videos for Two Of Us, Let It Be, Long And Winding Road; and Get Back, Don't Let Me Down up on the freezing roof; so many others. Overall: to a fan, a beautiful and sad account of a unique group of individuals struggling and failing against disintegration; this should also be essential viewing to fans of intelligent pop/rock music who might have sometimes wondered where U2, Bon Jovi, Kings Of Leon et al came from – so far though, this was the artistic pinnacle.

Tommy Nelson "Let it Be" is not a good documentary. The first half simply consists of a cameraman sitting in on the Beatles recording for the "Let it Be" album. Everyone looks like they are having an awful time. John Lennon obviously could care less about the music, and instead is with Yoko, who sits in on the recordings. Ringo Starr, the usually happy and smiling drummer is sullen and bored. George Harrison has fun helping Ringo, but other than that, he too is angry and seems bored. Paul McCartney is obviously trying to have a good time, and might be more so than the others, considering the bulk of the songs are written and sung by him. The animosity between the group members is painful to watch, and not only that, but it's not interesting. The whole first part of the film, the group members are constantly eyeing each other (along with the cameraman), and they all seem really bored, and because of this, the audience grows bored too. The only positive for this part of the film is some of the music is good, where some of these recordings sound awful and stiffly played.The second part of the film consists of the Beatle's final live performance on rooftop. This was a great pick-up compared to the first half. The Beatles at first seem like they aren't going to enjoy this, but you can tell by most of their faces that they are having a good time. Many of the songs previously recorded in the last part of the film are sung here, and sound better here than before.Now, it might not sound fair that my review of the film is directly affected by the Beatles attitudes during this time, but it really made the film hard to watch. Not necessarily hard to watch in a sad way, because this was not about the Beatles breakup, but about their final months together as a band. It was just not entertaining, or enjoyable. Where the other Beatles films (although they weren't documentaries) were usually goofy and silly, though stupid, this was boring and dull. The only real reason to watch this is if you are a huge fan of the Beatles, if you want to see what the recording studios look like, or if you enjoy seeing unhappy people (excluding McCartney who was obviously trying to keep his cool).My rating: * 1/2 out of ****. 86 mins.