It was October 8, 1989 at the USF Sun Dome where I first saw The Beach Boys live with Chicago as their opening act. It was my first concert experience, and in my household The Beach Boys were pretty much royalty. Any time the band was on the radio the volume was cranked up and my mom and I would sing along, causing those in neighboring cars to quickly roll up their windows in an attempt to tune out our terrible voices. My parents collected the albums on vinyl, and later I’d get them on cassette and bop my head listening to the surf tunes fantasizing about the beach or staring out at the pool thinking about bikini-clad girls. The Beach Boys will forever have a nostalgic place in my heart. Even as my taste in music has evolved, I still will listen to their albums time to time. Their feel-good music is perfect for a summer afternoon; they’re timeless, and that’s why I’m not surprised that Disney has put out a new documentary about the band that got its start in the early 60s, and you can still see them touring still (at least with some of the surviving members). I was excited about this documentary, though I’ve learned to be a little cautious; after all, it is sometimes good to not know all the dirty little secrets about the artists and sports figures we idolized in our past. But then I remembered this is Disney, so I doubt we’ll be getting anything too scandalous here, and I was right.
There should be very little surprise that this documentary starts off with how the band first came together. We get the photos from when the members were all younger, and their influences, no surprise that they were fans of surf music legends like Dick Dale and The Ventures. What is a bit of surprise is hearing how little the members of the band actually surfed. They were more about the music and mastering their harmonies, which is what not only launched their careers but has become a part of their legacy. We get interviews with some of the surviving members as well as clips from archived interviews, and this is not just expected but welcomed in this type of documentary.
The first part of this just feels like the comfort-food take on the band. It hits on all the elements we expect, seeing them on their rise to fame, a little bit of tension in the family but nothing too bad, but the way this is told it just feels a bit familiar, like we’ve seen other bands go through the same things. As this gets into the developing rivalry with The Beatles, this does get a bit more interesting. Though the film spends a bit of time discussing Brian Wilson being the leader of the group and him taking time away from touring to stay in the studio to create new music, I feel this block of time for the group deserved more digging into. Wilson after all brought in The Wrecking Crew, a group of musicians who recorded in studio with numerous bands (there’s a fantastic documentary about The Wrecking Crew that is streaming that I recommend checking out), and they helped Wilson with creating their album Pet Sounds and in a way became the second iteration of the group, at least for recording. This officially kicked out the “rivalry” between the The Beatles and The Beach Boys, as both groups elevated their and were changing what the experience was like to listen to an album.
Then we get a depiction of the decline in the group as the revolving door of members coming and going continues. I was a bit surprised that this documentary dabbled into the drug use that occurred, but most surprising was this getting into the strange connection The Beach Boys have with Charles Manson. This continues to delve into the growing friction in the band with the lawsuit over royalties between Brian Wilson and Mike Love (the lead singer of the group). Just as this was getting into the gritty stuff, this documentary is wrapping up. It pretty much ignores the 80s and onward, barely touching on their legacy or what has happened to the members who have passed away or are still with us. It’s like a good portion of their legacy, good and bad, is just ignored, and I kind of hate that. Even them having their song “Kokomo” playing in the closing credits is a bit of a slap to the audience’s faces considering the song came out in 1988.
The film has shared directing credits with Frank Marshall and Thom Zimny, and when you look at their credits, you’d expect this to be something great. But I feel they played this too safe. My problem with this film, though I understand it wants to be warm and fuzzy and stay positive … most fans of the group know this story. If this is made to appeal to a new and younger generation, why stop where they did? Personally I recommend people check out the film Love and Mercy. It’s a film that explores Brian Wilson’s life and shows the good and the bad, but I feel it gives a better perspective of the group. This documentary just feels like soft filler, something to just have on to enjoy the music and seeing some old concert footage cut together. Yeah, this may make me want to dust off some old albums, but it falls short of being something special.
For those of you who are interested, The Beach Boys is now streaming on Disney+.
