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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2007 - WaffleMovies.com