Review of Daydream Believers: The Monkees' Story (2000) by Catherine S — 19 May 2012

Daydream Believers: The Monkees Story gave me more than I expected, but then again I wasn't expecting much in the first place. It's a fairly shallow experience that doesn't give you too much new on the background of the Monkees television show, but what it does do it does well. Luckily.

Daydream Believers is the reanactment of the story of the Monkees, starting with the creation of the television show to the breakout success of the show and the start of Monkeemania and ending at their inevitable downfall after the release of their only big screen outing "Head".

Really, that's it. The unfortunate part of this reinterpretation is the lack of new information. In a movie like this, I'm looking for new facts that I didn't know before heading into the movie. The problem was I left only shaking my head because of the sugarcoated nature of the film. We never get a true look into the members' relationships with each other and any arguements that occur are quickly mended and forgotten, so somehow there's no character development in characters based off of real people. The character that receives, in my opinion, the most character development is probably Peter and Mike who seem to gain the most attention in this movie, but it's minimal. The extreme contrast of the actors speaking voices and the dubbed over singing borders on the Beatles Cartoon show levels, being to the point of laughability.

However, the one praise I can lend to this movie is the casting. The actors they picked to play the Monkees do their job very well and while are not perfect, they resemble their real life counterparts. As well as they do perfect the one thing that a movie with the Monkees' antics in it needs: Hilarity. I had just as much fun if not more fun watching these four romp around and act silly as I did watching the original television show. Yeah, I said it.

While I had fun watching it, I still ended the film feeling melancholy. Maybe it's because of the sugarcoated ending that made the whole history of the Monkees seem so happy and pleasant or maybe the still lingering memory of Davy Jones' death three months ago. I don't know. Either way, if you're a Monkees fan like I am, you may enjoy this. Those looking to get into the Monkees shouldn't use this as their first impression. Watch the real Monkees television show, or better yet listen to their music. (Real Rating: 62%).