Spike Jonze’s New Beastie Boys Movie Is No Fun

It’s impossible not to feel good when Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Michael “Mike D” Diamond are talking. The two living Beastie Boys lightly ribbing each other, reminiscing, making bad jokes, and showing goofy photos of their teenage years—as far as nostalgia goes, this is about as warm and fuzzy as it gets. It’s also about as predictable as it gets. In Beastie Boys Story, the new film by Spike Jonze, cameras follow Horovitz and Diamond onstage at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre as they retrace their beloved 2018 memoir in front of fans. The result amounts to a PowerPoint of the Beastie Boys story with running commentary. That’s it; no curveballs, no surprises. Essentially, it’s one long Lifetime Achievement Award that they hand out to themselves, and watching their youthful irreverence stiffening into middle-aged reverence is a bit sad.

At this point, the Beasties’ story is about as old and well-trod as the birth of hip-hop itself, and anyone who has ever watched a TV special about the group can almost recite it. In the new film, which hits Apple TV+ April 24, Horovitz and Diamond regale a rapturous audience with their earliest memories as childhood friends, meeting Adam “MCA” Yauch (who passed away in 2012) at a Bad Brains show, discovering the music of Run-D.M.C., and eventually crossing paths with Rick Rubin. “She was into cool bands like Kraftwerk and she lived in this loft on 14th Street with her mom” is a pretty typical recollection (about meeting Kate Schellenbach, the original member and “Beastie Girl” who would be unceremoniously fired as the band blew up in the 1980s). One of the biggest applause lines comes when Horovitz breaks his monologue to ask, plaintively, “Why can’t it be like the old days?”

The two-hour presentation divides into chapters that echo their memoir, with nothing coloring outside the lines of the established narrative. We pause at reliable beats for the tour with Madonna, the Beasties’ brief reign of terror as beer-spraying American nightmares, the big L.A. mansion where they recorded the visionary commercial flop Paul’s Boutique. Then, the creative and spiritual rebirth of Check Your Head, which inaugurated the Beastie Boys’ second phase and helped usher in the alternative-rock era. Although Diamond and Horovitz are engaging, neither of them muster much wit. One of the best moments comes when Horovitz acknowledges the presence of the teleprompter. Apple is billing this documentary as “the new film of the show of the book,” and it occurred to me more than once while watching that the next step for this material is probably a jukebox musical.

If the documentary has the rhythms—and the longueurs—of a particularly windy best-man speech, then at least it has the sentimental payoffs of one, too. The screen behind Horovitz and Diamond projects endearing footage of their early attempts at onstage rapping, baby fat still on their faces and lyric sheets held up with shaking hands. In the sweeter and more unguarded moments, they reflect on their youthful foibles. “They wanted us to be like the cartoon rap version of an ’80s metal band, but instead with Adidas shell-toes and track suits and shit,” Diamond says of onetime Def Jam bosses Rick Rubin and Russell Simmons. “And we were all in,” chimes in Horovitz ruefully. Later, when they remember trying to get a new contract with Capitol Records based off the success of “Fight for Your Right,” Diamond admits, “We’re embarrassed by that song, but not so embarrassed that we won’t use it to get a record contract.”

Similarly, when they reflect on the Eye of the Tiger-style run of small punk clubs they played to drum up excitement for Check Your Head after Paul’s Boutique bombed and the world forgot about them, Horovitz marvels: “Five years earlier, we’re at Madison Square Garden, and now we’re playing clubs. You’d think we’d be bummed out about it. But actually, falling off can be fun.”

The story, no matter where it goes, travels in Adam Yauch’s wake. The sonic breakthroughs on their 1986 debut Licensed to Ill begin when Yauch experimented with tape loops after reading that Jimi Hendrix used them. The meat-headed “Fight for Your Right” era grinds to a halt because Yauch sees the writing on the wall, and briefly quits the band. After Paul’s Boutique, the three members pick up instruments and start woodshedding on Yauch’s cue. They write “Sabotage” after they overhear Yauch playing a bassline so good that they assumed it was someone else’s song already. Their older, more enlightened phase comes after Yauch explores Buddhism and raps about respecting women on “Sure Shot.” And then they leave L.A. after eight years to return to their NYC homebase; of course, Yauch goes first.

The sense of Yauch as the departed paterfamilias is even more poignant here, as Horovitz and Diamond retell their story without him. “The two of us will do the best we can, because one of us isn’t here,” Diamond says early on. Near the end, Horovitz sits down at the edge of the stage as the lights go down. He gets choked up recalling their final gig—a headlining spot at 2009’s Bonnaroo. As Yauch’s lovely, tentative bossa nova ballad “I Don’t Know,” from Hello Nasty, plays over the house speakers, the remaining Beasties wax rhapsodic about their guiding light: “A labyrinth of ideas and emotions, an enigma, a wild card… He was a living contradiction of people’s ideas of how or what you’re supposed to be or do.” Shortly after that, the documentary ends. Horovitz and Diamond hug, and “Intergalactic” plays over the credits.

The Beastie Boys used to be a sort of talisman for a trickster spirit; they played American pop culture like a kid beating Mario holding the controller upside down. As this chronicle takes great pains to remind us, however, that was a long time ago. The film is a big, uncomplicated love letter, and it gets a few faint smiles. But anyone looking for the group’s trademark virtues—spontaneity, smarts, offbeat charisma—should look elsewhere, because Beastie Boys Story has all the subversion of a bowl of soup.

Originally Appeared on Pitchfork