Daydream Believers: The Monkees' Story is a big disappointment because the story of The Monkees has such great potential and could have made for a great film. This unfortunately, is not a great film. In a way, the project was doomed from the get-go simply for being a made-for-TV movie. The Monkees story isn't one that can be told in a PG-rated way, and unfortunately those were the standards that had to be met.
First off, the casting seemed to make the unfortunate decision of choosing the four lead actors who portray the Monkees, more for their physical appearances than anything else. All four actors resemble their Monkey counterparts fairly well, but their performances were all over-the-top and leaned dangerously into the areas of caricature. Micky was "the zany one", Mike "the controlling one", Peter "the zen one" and Davy "the easy-going one". The reduction of The Monkees to these one-dimensional characters makes the main characters difficult to relate to, and hard to believe. It would have been much nicer to see all four portrayed as fully fleshed out human-beings. The actor who plays Peter was probably the best in my opinion, while the actor who played Davy did at least seem to take some time to get Davy Jones's mannerisms down fairly well, most especially when playing the tambourine. All in all though, it was difficult to see them as The Monkees and not as four actors doing poor imitations of The Monkees. Aaron Lohr's "Micky Dolenz doing James Cagney" was particularly cringe-worthy.
Also a great deal of screen-time was wasted with this film by recreating full music videos or scenes from the show. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but accuracy was not taken into account when filming these recreations. They appeared to try to make the "Daydream Believer" video fairly close to the original in terms of choreography, but goofed on the wardrobe by outfitting the boys in the clothing worn in the "Star Collector" video. They also attempted to recreate the Monkees opening sequence, but mixed up scenes from the first season opener with the second season opener. Since these bits took up a good portion of the film, you think they'd have taken the care to at least recreate them accurately.
Many of the more scandalous bits of Monkey history (Michael Nesmith's affair and the resulting illegitimate child, most notably) were left out entirely to paint a much cleaner picture than what existed in reality. In addition, many facts were fudged, changed, or outright left out in order to make this film more of a happy-go-lucky affair than the real tell-all expose that it could have been.
All-in-all, it's a shame that the first attempt at bringing the lives of The Monkees to the screen resulted in such a mediocre piece. Hopefully someday a bigger studio, with more funds and more time, can do justice in telling the real story of the Pre-fab Four we know and love.
First off, the casting seemed to make the unfortunate decision of choosing the four lead actors who portray the Monkees, more for their physical appearances than anything else. All four actors resemble their Monkey counterparts fairly well, but their performances were all over-the-top and leaned dangerously into the areas of caricature. Micky was "the zany one", Mike "the controlling one", Peter "the zen one" and Davy "the easy-going one". The reduction of The Monkees to these one-dimensional characters makes the main characters difficult to relate to, and hard to believe. It would have been much nicer to see all four portrayed as fully fleshed out human-beings. The actor who plays Peter was probably the best in my opinion, while the actor who played Davy did at least seem to take some time to get Davy Jones's mannerisms down fairly well, most especially when playing the tambourine. All in all though, it was difficult to see them as The Monkees and not as four actors doing poor imitations of The Monkees. Aaron Lohr's "Micky Dolenz doing James Cagney" was particularly cringe-worthy.
Also a great deal of screen-time was wasted with this film by recreating full music videos or scenes from the show. This wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but accuracy was not taken into account when filming these recreations. They appeared to try to make the "Daydream Believer" video fairly close to the original in terms of choreography, but goofed on the wardrobe by outfitting the boys in the clothing worn in the "Star Collector" video. They also attempted to recreate the Monkees opening sequence, but mixed up scenes from the first season opener with the second season opener. Since these bits took up a good portion of the film, you think they'd have taken the care to at least recreate them accurately.
Many of the more scandalous bits of Monkey history (Michael Nesmith's affair and the resulting illegitimate child, most notably) were left out entirely to paint a much cleaner picture than what existed in reality. In addition, many facts were fudged, changed, or outright left out in order to make this film more of a happy-go-lucky affair than the real tell-all expose that it could have been.
All-in-all, it's a shame that the first attempt at bringing the lives of The Monkees to the screen resulted in such a mediocre piece. Hopefully someday a bigger studio, with more funds and more time, can do justice in telling the real story of the Pre-fab Four we know and love.