I think to get the full experience with Tommy, you probably need to be high on something… but if you’re high on something, you may overlook the religious commentary. The religious stuff is interesting, but a little heavy handed. This heavy handedness made me feel like (…and here’s my standard complaint about just about every movie) the film was probably 20 minutes longer than it needed to be. It’s a fun movie, great music, and has quite a few superstars that I didn’t expect.
Tina Turner as the Acid Queen was awesome. Awesome to watch, that is. If I saw that person in real life, like maybe in a room at the end of a hall painted red and black with poor lighting and esoteric, yet demon inspired dripping writing on the walls at the back of a disco club with a boxing ring as a dance floor in a backwater mining town in a remote region of Western China where I worked on a mineral exploration project as part of a white-people survey and mapping crew that had no business but not getting stabbed… I’d probably walk the other direction. Her twitchy grin matches her dance, and she is almost as creepy as her syringe addled iron maiden robot thing. Oh my god, Roger Daltrey… how’d you get in that thing without safety goggles on? Dude, protect your eyes!
Elton John is very thematic as the pinball wizard. So good. The pinball Wizard scene is probably the best one in the film. It makes me wish I could have been in that theatre while they filmed the scene. The energy seems so real and intense. Who’s got THAT story? I want to buy that person a beer. I’d probably buy Elton John a Beer too, but he’s probably busy trying to figure out why he can’t distinguish the colours on traffic lights from each other… They all just look red for some reason.
Ok…
Did I like Tommy? Yeah.
Would I watch it again? Maybe. I won’t seek it out, unless I happen to be overdosing on LSD.
Would I recommend it to others? Look, if you’re going to watch this film, you’ve already seen it. Like 100 times.
Journey to the Centre of the Classic Film Vault 