Yellow Submarine review – Beatles' eye-popping animation resurfaces

Any whimsy in this lovingly restored time capsule of 1968 is banished every time a classic Beatles song crashes on to the soundtrack

There’s real charm and genuine archival interest in this rerelease of Yellow Submarine, the Beatles’ animation from 1968 – lovingly restored, frame by frame, so that the colours pop and throb the way they did at the time.

However, honesty forces me to say that when I first saw this on TV as a kid, I secretly felt that it was one of those things that grownups sternly decide children ought to like. And on seeing it again in 2018, I feel that, for all its attractions and sporadic inspirational outbursts, this well-meaning Ringo-oriented entertainment is not exactly in the top rank of Beatle achievements. There is a little bit of disposable and flabby whimsy, and between the songs, it often appears to be treading water graphically. Yet when a Beatles standard crashes on to the soundtrack, the whole thing snaps into shape and becomes something fiercer, more interesting, and more adult. This is especially true for the superb rendering of Eleanor Rigby at the beginning, particularly the eerie juxtaposition of Liverpool and Everton players in red and blue, shivering and jittering surreally. The grownupness of image and music there has power.