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That Thing You Do! Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 36 Reviews)

Favorite Movie
This is a classic band movie. It's very inspirational, engaging, has wonderful music you can sing a long to and definetely makes you want the soundtrack. It's a movie that is short, sweet and sensational. The Wonders rock my socks.

Great Little Movie If You're a Fan of Pop Music
I admit to really loving this movie. I read somewhere that Tom Hanks came up with the idea for the script after watching a Beatles documentary. Based on the timing of its mid-90's release, I'm certain it was the Anthology series - which aired in that period on ABC television. Being a huge Beatles fan - and having almost worn out my Anthology DVD set - you can see a lot of the small touches in TTYD taken almost verbatim from the glory days of Beatlemania. As I've read in other reviews, the only real problem with the story arc is the Jimmy character. There's no real evidence of his genius, nor is there a trace of likeability. You also don't accept his "artistic gravitas" (which manifests even while he's still playing in his parents' garage in small-town Erie, PA), because there's not even the slightest hint that he has the goods to back it up. The song that becomes their one hit only did so because it was played contrary to his original concept. This makes the climactic, inevitable ending ring hollow, because at that point you're sort of glad that scowling, sulking and ever-petulant Jimmy is gone. I liked Tom Everett Scott a lot, but Steve Zahn basically walks away with the movie as Lenny - it's kind of a shame he hasn't had more substantial comedic roles over the last 10 years. One of the little details I liked is that they started out as a true garage band, with cheap Sears & Roebuck Silvertone guitars and worn out drums. By the time they reach the middle of their state fair tour, and the record has significantly charted, they're all playing on brand spanking new Rickenbacker's, Fender's and (I think) Ludwig drums. The short scale red Rickenbacker that Jimmy plays is the same model John Lennon used, and in a couple of scenes you can see Jimmy standing on stage aping his head-up, cocksure, wide stance at the mike.

Even with the flawed storyline, if you're a fan of great 3 minute pop songs (which TTYD certainly is - in spite of being written for the movie), and you're lurking somewhere in your mid-40's and nostalgic for the 60's (which I certainly am), then this movie is a rare and great treat.

Pleasant and Predictable
This is a sweet film. Not only did Tom Hanks write and direct it; he also composed some of the songs. Set in the early 1960s, the film chronicles the rise of the (entirely fictional) band "The Wonders" (aka the "One-ders" as in they end up with only a single hit). Their hit song "That Thing You Do" rises in the charts, and they cross the country playing state fairs, finally ending in Hollywood.

This concept allows us all the pleasures of nostalgia for a far more innocent time (at least as it's portrayed here): the cars, the clothes, the hair styles, the step-and-fetch-it bellboy who attempts to micromanage the love interest from his spot in the taxi-line. Liv Tyler and Charlize Theron are, of course, gorgeous, and the guys are so cute too. Tom Hanks' boyish grin has never been brighter. And despite the inevitable tensions that cause the band to break up, the film comes to a sunny and satisfying end -- Nothing really bad ever seems to happen to this crew. The whole thing would be hard to believe if in fact it were not entirely ficitonal, including the pseudo-biographies that tell us what each character is "doing now." Oddly that chutzpah (giving us the real history of made-up folks) signals both the movie's strengths and weaknesses.

Its singleminded optimism is why this isn't a five-star movie, for all its charm. All bright surface, the film becomes a tad repetitive. Case in point: The sheer number of times that the hit song "That Thing You Do" is played. It's a snappy tune, no doubt, but we don't need to hear it five hundred times (well, maybe it was only about twelve). This could still have been a sweet and adorable movie with just a little more preparation for some of the character flaws that lead to the conclusion. Definitely fun to watch, but still too predictable.

We WANT to think that nothing was going on in this time period but aspiring bands competing with the Beatles, soda fountains, neon signs, princess phones, and cute girls with curlers in their hair, but actually -- as Hanks clearly knows -- that bass player who volunteers for the Marines is heading off to Vietnam and that bellboy will be marching for civil rights in a quick shake of the hourglass.

I'm not against innocent pleasures, but this film is aggressively cheerful and one-dimensional. A more interesting and entertaining movie could have been made about these same themes.

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