Review of Daydream Believers: The Monkees' Story (2000) by Richard H — 29 Sep 2008

Many bio-pics have an unusual fall-off point for viewer satisfaction depending on how big a fan of the subject the viewer is. A moderate fan can accept historical inacuracies or dramatic licence without even noticing, but a devouted fan will bristle at ever departure from real history.

That's my problem with Daydream Believer. It does a good job taking the truly dramatic and twist-filled saga of The Monkees and condencing it into a standard formula flick, that formula is astoundingly different from reality on many occasions.

Some of these discrepencies are nitpicky little things (like Mockey going to the public Monkees try outs when he actually had a private audition) but the oh-so-fake happy ending is far too much to forgive.

Still, the cast does a good job capturing the spirit of the real Monkees, and the soundtrack is an obvious winner. There are much better sources to go to if you want the real story of The Monkees, but as pure entertainment, Daydream Believer is okay.