Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing

Rating: 3/10 (11 October 2007)

:::Possible Spoilers Here-In:::
The rawness and artistic vision of Across the Universe almost carries this film to fruition. Strawberries oozing blood, young people experiencing love in a lake below a storm, animation mixing with live action mixing with puppetry mixing with outlandish costumes and make-up to create a hellish vision of Vietnam and the draft... it is almost too much for the eye to take in. Unfortunately, visuals cannot make a film fly without something to keep them aloft, and so Julie Taymor's latest piece crashes from its cosmic journey down to earth in a chaos of missed opportunities and un-centered beauty.
Make no mistake. Taymor knows how to fill a frame. She showed this in both Titus and Frida. Thanks to her theatre work (particularly on the Lion King and The King Stag), we also know that she is capable of creating images, puppets, and costumes of astounding beauty that can carry a lot more meaning than the actors within. Across the Universe does nothing to challenge this view.
However, like her previous films, there is a serious lack of focus that settles in about halfway through, bogging down an otherwise magnificent concept. Shout-outs to songs that didn't make the cut are nice, but pointless. Plot lines start in the middle of nowhere (the band's feud being a prime example), meander a bit, and end equally without reason. Secondary characters (Prudence, Sadie, and JoJo) seem built to make a deeper statement with their comments on music, sexual freedom, and voyeurism, but finish half-formed with stories that ultimately travel nowhere. Their songs and moments - from Prudence's search for love to Sadie's dealing with "The Man" - seem to weigh the story down in the middle rather than add to it. "Dear Prudence," among other songs, does nothing to really advance the storyline. It's just an excuse to show more pretty pictures. The entire film is filled with moments like these - as in the circus scene where Eddie Izzard as Mister Kyte transports the characters a land of nowhere and everywhere - that are beautiful but, because the characters don't fulfill their promise, seem dead in hindsight.
The main characters, meanwhile, are as one-dimensional as the philotic lines that are supposed to connect them. Max = angry egotistical nihilist affected by the war. Lucy = disillusioned prom queen turned radical. Jude = lonely artist interested more in love than movements. We can see the plot points coming from a mile away, and while deeper characters might have been able to lift such a light load of love onto their shoulders, there is not enough exploration to explain anyone's actions, let alone make the roles interesting enough to want to know more about them. Jude falls in love with Lucy, but then immediately moves to New York without a second thought. He also picks up drawing, which seems to come out of the ether as randomly as Lucy's secondary love interest (which goes somewhere...eventually... but doesn't get discussed enough - save in anger - to really justify Jude's reaction to it). Max's story is simplistic in the extreme (fun-loving guy goes to war, comes back a shell) and the one (admittedly unoriginal) turn that might have added some fireworks (a possible drug addiction after his return) flairs then fades away without a second mention.
And unfortunately, the music is sometimes the worst part. The covers themselves - like the film - aren't technically awful, just devoid of meaning. The worst are like "Revolution" and "Hold Your Hand", in which only the very surface of the songs are used, usually as either filler or to cover for the otherwise absent plot/character development. The best (like the war-torn "I Want You (She's So Heavy)"/Draft sequence) rip meaning from the songs and transplant something completely different onto them and create something new and unique. What are Taymor and her crew of Merry Pranksters getting at? It seems like there is no unified vision to the whole mishmash of Beatles tune. Yes, the Beatles are awesome, and so is Taymor's eye. Even the actors do well with what little their given. But, the question is, can John, Paul, George, and Ringo gild everything they touch simply by the filmmakers hearkening back to them? The answer is "No". I love the Beatles. I love their work. I also love both the underlying subtext and beauty to their lyrics and music. It is present in all of their work, from their first song to their last.
But it is not present in Across the Universe. It's an aesthetically fantastic film that tries to use the best band of the 60's and an unfocused artistic paint brush of wonderment to cover up a by-the-numbers love story that makes all the usual statements about the 60's. Messed up time? Yes. War sucks? Definitely. Some people take revolution too far? Uh-huh. There isn't anything in here that will shock or offend anybody who experienced the time period or has seen any other film about the time period. And ultimately, compared to these films, Across the Universe just sounds flat.