The Beatles are coming to America to perform on Ed Sullivan's show. In New Jersey, engaged Pam Mitchell (Nancy Allen), Grace Corrigan (Theresa Saldana) and Rosie Petrofsky (Wendie Jo Sperber) are eager to go. Janis Goldman (Susan Kendall Newman) intends to protest their bad music. Grace recruits Larry Dubois (Marc McClure) for the limo from his family funeral business. They are joined by irreverent delinquent Tony Smerko (Bobby Di Cicco). They arrive at the hotel surrounded by a mob of young girls. The group scatters as they try to sneak into the hotel. Rosie finds Beatles collector Richard Klaus (Eddie Deezen).It's a wild wacky time as the teens try to get to the seminal cultural event. The problem starts with the fact that not all of the six characters are friends. This disparate group is itching to come apart and that's exactly what they do. In fact, they scatter into six single individuals. The missing aspect of this wacky misadventure is friendship. The movie concentrates on the crazy hijinx but without the friendship, I don't care. The story could split the group but it needs to keep some of the kids together. The movie fails to deliver the relationships.

The most remarkable thing about this movie for me is the fact that it made me feel nostalgic for an era I was never even part of. I'm a classic rock fan so the Beetles aren't anything new to me although I'm far from a Beetlemaniac, yet I some how missed the '60's while watching this.It also made me nostalgic for a forgotten era of comedy. This movie is not hysterical...but it's a fun story involving several intertwining characters and plots that you care enough about to stay interested. All in all it's a very entertaining film. We don't seem to get too many of these anymore. I'm a huge fan of Apatow films and others of the like, those movies have far more laughs per minute than "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" but will they still be entertaining 30 years from now? Who knows? Only time will tell...but this one's been time tested and I was pleasantly surprised by it.

Group of girlfriends scheme to see The Beatles when they come to New York City to appear on Ed Sullivan's television program in 1964. Fresh, fast-paced representation of obsessed fandom, coupled with canny recreation of an nostalgic era. Unfortunately, the story has nowhere in particular to go in the third act and resorts to ridiculous slapstick. Still, for the first three-quarters of the way, a very bright, sometimes exhilarating feature which never found its audience (the majority of the press it generated was in regards to Steven Spielberg's co-producer association). The young cast is quite good, though they are sometimes encouraged to overdo it. **1/2 from ****

I have always been a massive Beatles fan for as long as I could remember, but I have to admit that after seeing this film, my love for them went to an even higher level.Let me explain... now, I'm what you would call a late generation fan. I wasn't even THOUGHT of in 1964 because at the time, my mom was only 10 and my father was 12. So, with that said, I don't know anything personally about Beatlemania or what this performance meant to the nation at that time or what it was like just being a teenager during this time. That is, until I watched this movie. Watching this film and the antics of these characters is possibly the closest I will ever come to experiencing first hand what Beatlemania was like. It was like I was an unofficial member of this group of kids as they are trying desperately to get tickets to see the Beatles live on the Ed Sullivan show, all this starting by them trying to sneak into the Beatles' hotel.I loved that Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale made a wonderful dynamic by NOT making all the characters involved Beatles fans which made the film that much more believable. Let's face it... as popular as the band was then(and now), they did have a great number of detractors and they were brilliantly represented in this movie by Susan Kendall Newman as politically driven, Janis who feels the Beatles are nothing but meaningless drivel and Bobby Di Cicco as macho greaser, Tony who thinks they just suck, period. Their presence was a great contrast to the rest of the cast, especially Wendie Jo Sperber as the sweet, cherubic Rosie, the most fanatical of the bunch that at one point of the film, she literally throws herself from a moving car just so she can get to a phone booth to win Beatles tickets on a radio call-in contest. The rest of the cast is rounded out by Nancy Allen as Pam, a bride-to-be roped into this adventure against her will and ends up having fortunate luck of accidentally ending up in the Beatles' hotel suite; Theresa Saldana as Grace, the career minded, future reporter who wants exclusive pictures of the band and will do anything(literally) to get them; Marc McClure as Larry, who has a crush on Grace and is willing to do anything to help her achieve her goal and Eddie Deezen as Richard who is Rosie's equally fanatical partner in crime as they reek havoc throughout the hotel.Another thing I thought was a great direction taken by Zemeckis and Gale was to use Beatle sound-a-likes, not look-a-likes and to have the guys' faces hidden. This decision was terrific for this reason: the casting director could have auditioned actors until the cows came home and NONE of them would have been good enough to play the Fab Four. None. Thank goodness Robert and Bob realized that the power just in the Beatles' voices and music was enough not only to be the soundtrack of the film, but allowed we the audience to imagine the real Beatles instead of insulting us by making us accept four actors that would have most definitely paled in comparison to the real thing. I feel that even attempting this would have seriously cheapened the film and wouldn't have given it the impact that it has. It almost has the feel of it being a sort of time capsule and most certainly shows us the difference between hearing about what happened from someone else and being there. The film made me feel like the latter, like I was actually there.So, long story short, the movie is a must-see for any Beatles fan. It'll make you relive the energy and excitement of Beatlemania or if you're like me, who was not around during this time, will show you first hand exactly what it was like.