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Good concept, poorly executed.

Best movie ever!

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Tom Hanks is a real steamroller who goes well and mighty. He did many great movies and he seems to do no wrong. Yet, here he seemed to be all correct again, with this funny little film of a young band getting famous and then falling apart due to several factors all gotten together at one place. Here, the story seems to be OK, yes, as a drummer I do support all those technical difficulties the band encountered and all those conflicts they had. Yes, the studio / TV / gig routines are shown pretty well. Yes, the band seems to be very real, they play as if the actors play all their parts themselves. Yes, Liv Tyler and Charlize Theron are gorgeous sexy ladies. Yes, the band is a very funny gang often. And then, many NO's follow. No, the characters do not endear or grab you by their struggles or triumphs. No, the love line does not seem to be deep or decent. No, the final conflict does not smack of being real and mundane. It seems that Hanks tried very hard to slide along the surface without diving any deeper. There is no deep slant drilling of main heroes, there's only some sweet light slight tiny touches upon their psyche. This is a light little teen comedy with a very large chunk of certain shallowness and naivety, seemingly all coming from blurred recollections of Mr. Hanks himself. Oh, and I am sorry but does Mr. Zahn not irritate with his character all through. This obvious shallowness of all four main heroes seems extremely annoying, and this fluffy-puffy sweetness of Liv's Faye leaves nothing but a cloy of too sweet candy. Where Hanks succeeded is in biting certain sides of TV / cinema routine. Where he fails is depicting band's true evolution. And oh, all those jazz sentiments, they are so out of place that one can only rub their eyes in utter shock. Yeah, the overall feeling of very lightweight teen pop comedy never left me. It was nice, it was sweet. Decent or deep it was not. My rating - 7 Nice try, but not more

It's 1964 Erie, Pennsylvania. Drummer Guy Patterson (Tom Everett Scott) chases flirtatious Tina Powers (Charlize Theron) and unhappily works at the family appliance store. Faye Dolan (Liv Tyler) is the girlfriend of Jimmy Mattingly (Johnathon Schaech) who leads a band with Lenny Haise (Steve Zahn), T. B. Player (Ethan Embry), and Chad (Giovanni Ribisi). They get Guy to join after Chad breaks his arm and come up with the name "Oneders" (supposedly pronounced Wonders). Guy's fast beats force the band to change their song "That Thing You Do" during a competition. The guys sign with manager Phil Horace living out of his camper. They go to Pittsburgh. Mr. White (Tom Hanks) signs them to Play-Tone Records and promptly changes the spelling of their name to The Wonders.This is very much the personification of the Tom Hanks and his sunshine personality. It is fun, mostly happy, deliberately light even when the movie touches on darker issues, and has a catchy tune. It's good that the song is catchy because the movie plays it a lot. The visual is immaculately perky 60s. This is a happy Disney version of an one-hit-wonder rock group. The actors are beautiful. This is not to say this is a blindly perky film. It doesn't dig too deeply in the darker corners.

A ride through the music-making machine with a wholesome, mid-sixties one-hit-wonder. For years I thought I'd hate it, based on trailers and tone alone, but was pleasantly surprised. The film's got some issues, no doubt - especially the horribly tacked-on, telegraphed romantic ending - but it's got a lot of soul and I actually started to like the little tribe of stereotypes as we spent more time together. The theme song is appropriately catchy, too, without being grating like a lot of the era's pop records. Which is important, because it plays no less than once every ten minutes. There's good stuff here, with a nice leading performance from (who?) Tom Everett Scott as the band's hip, friendly drummer, but it's also clearly a learning project for writer / director / supporting actor Tom Hanks. Could've been much better with a bit of a trim and a wilder fire burning behind the lens.

As many people have said, it's an homage to a simpler time. Love the small visual nods to "A Hard Day's Night" with the boys running through the simulation of the states. Also the hint of the same thing that happened to Lennon with the 'he's engaged' posting on the monitor. Of course, Lennon was actually engaged, if not already married!I truly don't get tired of this film. Just a feel-good movie. Also liked everything I read about how Hanks insisted that the actors learn to play their instruments well enough to look good in the film. Some of them practiced several hours a day.It's fun to see his wife pop in as a waitress where there's good jazz. Such a seemingly fun woman - but what else would you expect from Tom Hanks' wife? No, it didn't win any awards. But it's a 'keeper'. Watch it. Such fun!