not terribly original but what the hey.....

Rating: 6/10 (20 October 2007)

It is really easy to find out whether or not people will like "Across the Universe". Just put two questions to them: "do you like Beatles music?" and "did you like 'Moulin Rouge'?". If the answer is "yes" to both, then they will; if either is "no" they will doubtless hate it. The film is not very original, a very severe criticism to direct at a director like Julie Taymor. I kept flashing on movies I've seen before - Milos Forman's "Hair", "Apocalypse Now", the Monkey's movie "Head", Taymor's "Titus", and of course "Moulin Rouge". (Fortunately, when "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band" came to mind, it was only to note that this film was WAY better than that notorious stink bomb.) We haven't gone very far afield from those films here. There could have been some invention on display, and its lack is disappointing. But the film does not deserve the gripes, voiced here, that it is no more than a glorified music video, or is some kind of festival of self-indulgence. To the extent that the film captures, visually as well as thematically, at least the mythology of what the 60s were supposedly about, it can be put down as a success. Just not an enormous one.