do I want what Julie Taymor is smoking? overlong, visually stunning work of pop art

Rating: 7/10 (11 October 2007)

It's easy to love the Beatles. They're almost the apex of what British rock/pop music was in the 1960s, and their legacy will remain long after Paul and Ringo join John and George. The songs were of love, and other wild and crazy things, and from everyone 2 to 22 to 64 to 100 can find appeal in the melodies, the harmonies, the experimental usage of sound effects and other tools at the time. Now comes Across the Universe, adapted from the stage musical, and it's like a half lovey-dovey goofy romantic drama, half mind-warp commercial for classic Beatles songs, not to mention a kind of condensation of infamous moments in Beatles pop-culture (sans the Ed Sullivan Show for some reason).
At the least, it intrigues one to think how this could ever be executed on a stage- or if it is somewhat less ambitious- though on its own it seems to cast an impression that should be taken on its own. This is mostly due to director Julie Taymor making this a kaleidescope of 60s socio-political fever ala Hair, only unlike Forman's film Taymor weaves in and out of making something of a crazy exploitation film, and it's in these moments that a break from 'conventional' musical film-making can be seen.
But in a way the experience of seeing Across the Universe reminded me of what I thought of Pirates of the Caribeean: At Worlds End; both films are overlong, at least by a few (if not more) minutes, tend to not make much sense at times, and also contain some chunks of tastefully tasteless acts of brazen, hilarious surrealism (where Verbinski had Jack Sparrow in Davey Jones's locker, this time we get Bono as Dr. Robert, and Eddie Izzard performing 'Benefit of Mr. Kite' in sequences that would've thrown the AIP people for a loop with their psychedelic product).
The story is meant to be simple, as many musicals tend to shoot for, and anyone who's seen a few melodramas will know what's going on in plot turns: Jude and Lucy are a British kid and an American girl respectively who meet when Jude comes to America looking for an estranged father (only seen in two scenes, by the way), and Lucy meets Jude by way of brother Max (as in Maxwell Silver Hammer, there's more in-references).
Soon Jude and Max decide to split the college area, go rent out an apartment in New York City thanks to (Sexy) Sadie, who soon meets Jo-Jo (come on flat-top) right out of Detroit and can play a mean guitar for her singing group, and then there's also Prudence who "came in through the bathroom window." Then there's love, a good chunk of drama, horrors of war and protesting as backdrops for the wishy-washy love-affair between Jude (who doesn't see the reason to go all-out with the protesting) and Lucy (who doesn't seem to realize until her bosses at the Democratic-action headquarters are making bombs something is fishy). If this sounds like it's getting not as simple, I neglected to mention the throwaway psychedelia scenes, making up a good twenty minutes in the mid-section of the flick.
What ends up distinguishing this flawed film- and it's hard not to have at least some criticism even if you go into this a die-hard Beatles fan, as more or less forty years has made playing on a roof-top old hat, or just in the putridly conventional turns the story makes in the last fifteen minutes (including a version of 'Hey Jude' that makes an already overrated hit even more unbearable)- is really the vision behind it, the verve to make many scenes at least have the feeling of vibrancy and intimacy, and the guts to take theatricality into the realm of camera compositions, deranged lighting set-ups, production design out of underground paintings, et all.
A scene like at the bowling alley is taken as far as it can, playing with all the space and as the actors (including the guy who played Jude, can't recall his name) make it fun times with the palette of colors used. But then when looking at 'Mr. Kite' or 'I Am the Walrus' (with the guest stars Bono and Izzard bringing their own weird quirks to the process), or even 'Because', all logic is cut-off, not even little bits like in other portions of the film (i.e. Prudence in the movie) and suddenly it's imagination incarnate.
This all being said, I'm not sure when I would want to see this film again. It's not like one of the Beatles movies from the original era, where Help! or Hard Days Night or Yellow Submarine carried unique comic and cinematic charms as well as a level of rewatchability that's unparalleled in rock movies. It also becomes something of a nitpicky affair to go from one segment to another and have it jarring to find one excellent or touching and the next shrill or just stupid (despite them both being great performers, I couldn't stand the 'arc' given to Jo-Jo and Sadie).
But the singing and performances, for what they're worth, are at the least fantastic covers (far and away better than those for I Am Sam), are quite accomplished and, for the 'kids' as it were spot-on for what's needed. And there's a balance that Taymor tries to keep in scenes like 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' where there's the aftermath of war and veterans in hospital beds, and at the same time six Salma Hayek nurses all doing dances, that are all her own. It's all nothing great, but I was glad I saw it.