The Beatles songs fit in perfectly (for the most part) in this otherwise mediocre film.

Rating: 7/10 (21 September 2007)

"Across the Universe" is a brilliantly directed film that wants to be more than a typical love story, but has a hard time. The fantasy musical numbers are really half and half with wonderful and strange. Even the strange ones are enjoyable, though confusing.
The film deals with a young man from Liverpool, Jude, who's in America to meet his dad, and Lucy, a well to do American girl. They fall in love, while the Vietnam war is still raging. Lucy's brother Max has to go in. Subplots from characters named after Beatles songs like Sadie the aging rocker, and Prudence the closeted homosexual come into play. It's really pretty standard fare material. The musical numbers make this a fun movie. With that said, "Across the Universe" does have a good sense of humor for a drama/musical. Though the characters aren't overly developed, they are all still likable.
I enjoyed this film very much, but it did have it's problems. Sometimes it felt like a surrealistic masterpiece, and sometimes it felt like "Blues Brothers 2000". Luckily the surrealistic masterpiece won over the other.
My rating: *** out of ****. 126 mins. PG-13 for nudity, language, violence and drug use.