I'd never seen this full movie, but watched it this afternoon. I've always felt the boys were overrated as a pop quartet, but still an essential band in rock history. I've seen A Hard Day's Night a few times and never thought much of it. This film is not as good. In fact, having grown up watching reruns of The Monkees tv show, I can say that while The Beatles made better music, The Monkees were far better comedians and actors. They could actually mix physical and verbal comedy along the lines of The Marx Bros.- the comedy team The Beatles are most compared to. The acting in this film, especially by the boys, is atrocious. There's no tale and no real reason for the film, save being a 90 minute commercial for the album.
The visuals of the film are superb but, in essence, this is the birth of the music video a generation before MTV (1965). I'll write a full review soon, but any positives you read about this film are likely just fans, not serious cineastes. The good thing is that two #2s from the great 1967 Patrick McGoohan tv series, The Prisoner, star in the film: Leo McKern and Patrick Cargill.
Here is one of their great tunes, though:
