Just Awful

Rating: 1/10 (5 November 2007)

I had high hopes for this film. I love Julie Taymor's work--Frida is great, Titus is simply magnificent. Across the Universe, however, is simply one of the worst films I have ever seen. The reworked Beatles tunes are bad. Just bad. I cringed every time a song started. Their use does not translate as clever to any degree. Instead, the application of the songs feels terribly contrived. The plot is utterly uninteresting. I felt in now way personally invested. Perhaps because the characters are not well written. Perhaps because they are empty clichés, testament to a watered-down, unimaginative impression of the time--an endless stream of iconic clowns. There were two good scenes, the draft scene and the trip scene. These were classic Taymor moments, beautifully and grotesquely designed. Unfortunately, five minutes of excellence do not make up for the painful experience of sitting through the rest of the film.