» Across the Universe (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Across the Universe (Two-Disc Special Edition) Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: More painful than the Beatle's break-up.
Comment: The common link I find to all of the negative reviews of this horrible film is that the people who hate the film are huge Beatles fans. Also, all of us went to see this movie WANTING to love it. And like many of the other reviewers, I left the movie thirty minutes into the film. As soon as that dude began singing into the camera, I knew someone had brewed up and concocted a disaster. THE MOVIE HAS NO PLOT. All the filmmaker did was tape together one song after another, hoping that a plot would emerge somehow from the order in which they were connected. Also, the renderings of the songs are toothless. What horrifies me most, however, is the large number of rabid fans who are turning this movie into their cult classic, claiming to revere this band called the Beatles they'd previously never encountered. Having all of these idiots running around "loving" the Beatles based on this film is an embarrassment to Beatles fans and the Beatles. I am not religious, but I now finally understand why Christians are prone to such anger over other "Christian" groups who espouse beliefs that have no relation to Jesus' teachings. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible movie.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Pretentious, Contrived, And Excremental
Comment: This pretentious nonsense preaches socially conscious lessons straight from the hippy manifesto as an excuse to stitch together hallucinogenic music videos featuring a variety of performers singing Beatles songs. The songs vary in quality dramatically, with the very worst being "Let It Be", "Come Together", and "I Want You" (as an Army recruiting musical), although given the breadth of material it's hard to single out a true low point.

There is lots of very plastic dialogue about revolution, etc. (e.g. "We need to radicalize!"), which would be easier to take seriously if the characters weren't named Jude, Prudence, Lucy, Jojo, and other obvious starting points for musical numbers. While the film is ostensibly a love story, it it's really more an excuse to revisit the radicalism of the 1960's, with spoiled self-important whiny brats providing self-indulgent and brainless commentary on world events, with Vietnam at the obvious forefront.

Several things should be obvious takeaways from this cinematic Hindenburg: Bono shouldn't act, Joe Cocker should never be backed by a choir, and Julie Taymor should never, ever be allowed to make another movie. Ever.

This would be the last movie I would recommend to my worst enemy.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: I was there, and I can remember it all.
Comment: Julie Taymor has done a remarkable job of capturing the essence of the 60's; the color is right, the sequence of events is right, the escalation of emotions is right and the music is right. I was 23 in 1967 and lived on the lower East Side of New York City where most of the scenes in the film takes place. It all happened the way Taymor describes from the street people, to the draft, to the Bread and Puppet Theatre marching down Fifth Avenue. So if you want to experience or relive that moment in time or explain to your children why that moment made such a difference watch this movie.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: All we are saying is don't give crap a chance...
Comment: This film is utterly painful. The dialogue is abysmal, the plot non-existent, the "hallucinatory" special effects sequences laughable, and the Beatles songs are crudely shoehorned in whether they fit or not, complete with some of the worst choreography I've ever seen in a film. I've liked Julie Taymor's other films, but she scraped the bottom of the barrel on this one. As far as recreating a vision of the late 60s, this film makes HAIR look like CITIZEN KANE in comparison. If you want to see a brilliant film that uses classic popular music as its core, check out Todd Haynes' I'M NOT THERE, but avoid this piece of crap at all costs...

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A journey through the Beatles soundscape
Comment: Honestly, I've never been a Beatles-fan. That is, I've never been a Beatles-fan prior to seeing Across The Universe. I found it on a whim somewhere, watched it just as suddenly, and I was pretty much caught. It's not even my "regular type" of music, but the way the story unfolds and how the songs are adapted and presented is what makes it great. I don't know Paul from John back in '60-whatever, but give me a fresh take on it, apply it to something colorful, catchy and modern, and you've got me. T-Bone Burnett was brilliant on Walk The Line, and he's just as great here. The way I see it, he's basically unearthing old rocks and polishing them into diamonds.

You might need to be open to musicals, because it's still (basically) two hours of people dancing and singing in colorful environments. But it's set in the 60's environment, and plays across the entire story in many literal and appropriate ways. The production design and visuals is just as much part of it as anything else.

Below I'll be sharing thoughts on my favourite segments and songs. If you haven't seen it yet, you might want to check it out before reading any further.

The opening, with "Girl" is particularly lamentful, Jim Sturgess draws you into it with nothing but his voice, and only a hint of a song. Not long after he also begins "All My Loving" with only his voice, and it's one of my very favourite songs because it stays with you in some odd way, it's just a very accessible and memorable song. "Hold Me Tight" in between goes from being your basic dance romp to something else when it's sung by two people in two situations. What's nice throughout is that most of it sounds almost sung "on the spot", similar in a way to Walk The Line. "..Face" is annoyingly hummable and "I Want You" has the best guitar sound in the entire thing (save, maybe "Helter Skelter"). "Because" is a rare sort of halftime break because it's so ethereal, but I don't think that's different from the original song. "Strawberry Fields" is a great visual montage, the look of it lifts the actual song a lot higher than it stands on its own. Evan Rachel Wood shows her entire singing skill in "Blackbird" and "Hey Jude", although a bit literal, is also a good moment, especially just the calm opening.

Songs I'm not as fond of are "Come Together", "Why Don't We..", "Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!", "Oh! Darling", "Happiness Is A Warm Gun" and "Don't Let Me Down". Mostly they're "B-songs", and they could all be dropped without affecting the primary story. There's also a lot of bickering between the secondary couple, and I'm not as fond of their singing in general. While Bono is odd enough, Eddie Izzard is just too odd, same goes for the song. Many songs are very literal, and overall I think it feels overly long, so it could've easily dropped 20 or 30 minutes and kept the other songs on the DVD or some alternate cut.

Anyway, that's how impressionable I am. Brighten it up and I'm there, and Across The Universe does the job well. It's fascinating and just overall enjoyable, with a new approach to a bygone era of music. It proves that a new method is often the way to appreciate something completely different.

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