Disney Plus has a new music doc out this year, and my official pull quote is that “you’ll have fun fun fun”, unless your daddy takes your T-Bird away. Honestly, it is just your usual safe music documentary, that explores the phenomenon of the Boys, while significantly tipping their hat to Brian Wilson (who does not contribute to the film). Starting out with how the Boys were formed, to how their career rose at the same time as The Beatles were invading America, while keeping it light, and not going into any potential dark moments. It is a fluff piece, but Beach Boys fans will enjoy it.
Descriptive Video Works does a nice audio description track, like they usually do. Diane Newman narrates, and she sounds freakishly similar to Tansy Alexander. But, it is a documentary, and between the talking head moments, and the times when we’re supposed to appreciate the music of The Beach Boys, they have to navigate this description. So, in the grand comparison scheme of things, there are movies with far more verbose descriptions, but documentaries are often really difficult, so I tend to lower the bar a bit. A truly exceptional documentary would be a visually striking one that has little to no talking. That would be the film with exceptional audio description and also a documentary. So, yeah, this is fine.
I first fell in love with The Beach Boys when I first started taking music lessons as a kid, and everyone thought I’d be just so cute singing Beach Boys songs, in a Hawaiian shirt, with some sunglasses. But, even though my introduction to them was more of a novelty, they really are a great music act whose songs I’ve enjoyed my entire life. A documentary on Disney Plus seems like the bare minimum we can do for them.
Final Grade: B+