A tale of two movies

Rating: 5/10 (25 June 2012)

Across the Universe is a movie based on Beatles songs. Interesting concept. And for a little while an interesting movie. But the concept can't sustain itself over the movie's inordinately long running time. The story can't hold up for that length of time. And the story goes off in directions the movie would have been better off avoiding. What started out as a fun little movie with some great songs devolves into a boring, pretentious slog to the finish. The whole second half of the movie you're just begging to hear Hey Jude. Because in a Beatles-themed movie it's a pretty safe bet that when you hear Hey Jude we're quite near the end. Hey Jude doesn't come nearly soon enough.
While it's the songs of John, Paul, George and Ringo which are at the center of the movie we never hear those famous voices. The songs are sung by the film's cast, mostly to surprisingly good effect. OK, there are a few duds in there but by and large the actors do the famous songs justice. Jim Sturgess does very well with the lead male role, a character conveniently named Jude. And in the lead female role, Lucy, Evan Rachel Wood is a revelation. She's fabulous. A couple of her early songs are definitely among the film's highlights. And they're a lot of fun too. Unfortunately in the second half of the movie fun is in short supply. Director Julie Taymor spends most of the film's second half beating you over the head about how horrible the war in Vietnam was. The movie is of course 40 years late to that party. When not going on and on and on about Vietnam the movie is basically just a psychedelic mess. Taymor drives her movie well and truly off the deep end. Things were going along just fine until a musical number which accompanies one character's induction into the military. If you were being kind the best thing you could say about the sequence is that it's bizarre. The truth is it's out-and-out stupid. Laughable. And sadly a sign of what's to come. The rest of the movie is either more of this tripped-out nonsense or anti-war drivel. OK, we get it. In the '60s people did drugs and thought war was bad. Can we move on? Please?
Sturgess and Wood do an admirable job trying to hold together a movie which is falling apart around them. They act well, they sing well, and they have very good chemistry. When the story focuses on the relationship between their characters of Jude and Lucy the movie works. Unfortunately that focus is lost and the movie clearly suffers for it. The last hour of this movie is not just bad, it's painful. Not even Beatles songs can save this. And while the Beatles songs used earlier in the film tuck neatly into the story later on there are some rather curious song choices which seem rather forced and don't come off well at all. The songs may be performed well. But too many of them fail to make any genuine impact. And some of them are totally wasted in the psychedelic haze. By the time the movie finally stumbles across the finish line the end is a blessed relief. A movie which seemed to have great promise totally lost its way.