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by Willie Waffle

Across The Universe 

One of those movies some people will hail as artistic, imaginative and visionary, while the rest of us wonder if those people are high.

Set in the 1960’s, Jim Sturgess stars as Jude – a shipyard worker in Liverpool who sets off to America to find his father.  Once here, he makes friends with a college student, Max (Joe Anderson) and his beautiful sister, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), and the trio takes the long and winding road through the turbulent revolutionary times. 

Across the Universe is an ambitious idea, but one that falls short of lofty goals.  Director Julie Taymor leaves me feeling like she just wanted to pack her favorite Beatles tunes into one movie, but it’s more like a series of music videos instead of a story that somehow enlightens us about the 60’s or these characters.  Across the Universe is one of the biggest “Who Cares?” movies I have seen in a long time as each character goes through the stereotypical challenges and events of the times, but we never get to look below the surface of each supposedly symbolic participant.  Worse yet, some tunes, like With a Little Help From My Friends or the non-Beatles song (but still pretty good) Dear Prudence, feel stuffed in for no reason other than Taymor or some marketing exec likes them (correction: I have always known the Siouxsie Souix version, but my pal Greg pointed out this was on The White Album).        

Writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais spice up the movie with some well placed lines  taken directly from Beatles tunes, but there is nothing else special about the dialogue since the music is supposed to advance the story (but fails miserably).  Across the Universe also has some fun cameos, and one horrific he’ll-never-live-it-down appearance by Bono that will go down in movie history as a mistake of Gigli proportions, no matter how well he sings I Am The Walrus.  

While Across the Universe is visually interesting with dancing, some trippy animation and performance numbers full of energy, it’s a movie that will quickly disappear.

1 Waffles (Out of 4)

Across The Universe is rated PG-13 for some drug content, nudity, sexuality, language and violence 

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