Across the Universe
By Jason Revill
As a child, from the time I was able to reach the record player in my home I was listening to The Beatles. I can’t recall a point in time where The Beatles weren’t apart of my life. This probably explains why I pretty much despise the music of the eighties, since while everyone I know were listening to Flock of Seagulls and later on Poison, I was listening to “The White Album”. I think mine was the wiser choice. So when I first heard about Across the Universe being told almost exclusively through the music of my favorite band and then started seeing previews for it, I didn’t know how to feel. Was it homage or sacrilege? Unfortunately after walking out of the theater I’m still not entirely sure.
In order to find his estranged father and a better life, British Dock worker Jude (Jim Sturgess) travels to America in the 1960s. There he meets his soon to be friend Max (Joe Anderson) and eventually falls in love with his sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). They all end up moving to New York to be a part of the bohemian counterculture, but when Max is drafted into Vietnam the war threatens turn all their lives upside down.
Really when you think about it the cast is almost superfluous, and it kind of shows. The music is really the star of this film and next to it the actors are pretty much set dressing. Jim Sturgess gives a surprisingly good performance as Jude, but Evan Rachel Wood is apparently as bland a singer as she is an actress, with Joe Anderson right behind her. Dana Fuchs is excruciating as Sadie. Her constantly trying to convince how sexy she is (get it?) is bad enough but her singing is like if Melissa Etheridge and Janis Joplin had a love child and then beat it. If it wasn’t for Martin Luther McCoy to balance her out it would be unbearable. And poor TV Carpio as Prudence is essentially only in the film so they can sing “Dear Prudence”.
There are some numbers that are just unbelievably bad. I’m the first to admit that I’m not a fan of U2, but having to watch Bono preening his way through “I am the Walrus” is almost unbearable. It’s bad enough that it’s Bono being, you know, Bono, but then he’s riding around on this freaked out hippie bus that’s more something like the Muppets’ Electric Mayhem would be riding around in. After that is Eddie Izzard, who I normally love, doing everyone’s least favorite Beatle’s song, “Being For the Benefit of Mr. Kite”. Of all the musical numbers in this film this is blatantly the worst and as a complete detour in the plot, really the most pointless. It’s a myriad of CGI effects with Izzard riffing over the spoken word song. For the life of me can’t imagine why it was even in the film other than they paid him to do it. All this takes place right in the middle of Across the Universe and is topped off with a sequence of the main character floating partially nude water. It almost completely derails the whole film and will definitely turn some people against it.
Now for every sequence that is terrible there is another that is done perfectly. To balance out Bono you have Joe Cocker doing a great cover of “Come Together”. And While Dana Fuchs is butchering tracks Martin Luther McCoy as JoJo is adding a soulful touch that is always nice in a good cover. I was so pleased to see him take over “Oh Darling” from Fuchs that I almost cheered. “Let it Be” used as a backdrop for the civil rights movement and sung but a gospel choir at a funeral was just begging to be done and I think I might like to put it in my will. It’s also nice to see “Revolution” used properly even if it is completely literal. And even the toughest holdouts can’t at least be a little touched at the films climax with “All You Need is Love”. They may not admit it to me and you, but deep down they felt it. For everything that was a horrible misstep, there is something else that was done beautifully.
Now all this leaves me completely conflicted with Across the Universe. On one hand, they got a lot of the songs right on, but at the same time when they trashed a song they trashed it good. And even though they sort of swung between being overly stagy and unnecessarily psychedelic (neither of which I cared for), there was sweet spot in the middle that was perfect. Let’s face it, that the problem with basing a movie around The Beatles catalog. You’re never going to be able to live up to it, but you can never completely fail because of it.
The Grade
- Story: C
- Acting: B-
- Visuals: B
- Originality: B
- Enjoyability: B-
- Overall: B-
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