A+ for Visual Effects and Musical Interpretation. The Rest? Eh . . .

Rating: 6/10 (4 April 2008)

This being a movie about the music of the Beatles, and me being a big Beatles fan, it's unforgettable in terms of it's music and the visual effects. One strength this movie had was it's different interpretations of Beatles songs. I especially liked Prudence's version of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" near the beginning of the movie. The set design and choreography were also very impressive.
But unfortunately, for every strength this movie had, it's accurate to say that there were at least three hang-ups. This is where I'm at odds with other friends of mine who have seen the movie. It's not that I hated "Across the Universe", it's just that I didn't love it because it had some very evident flaws. And I just remember leaving the movie feeling very disappointed about the movie's weaknesses, since they were so big.
For one, the movie came off to me as too preachy, especially towards the end. The characters in the film, particularly Lucy and Max Carrigan, came off less as children of the '60's, and more as people I knew from college who smoked weed all the time and said, "Man, I wished I lived in the '60's!" over and over again. I thought Jim Sturgess, who played Jude, was probably the best-developed and most believable character of everyone, but the rest of them felt like archetypes ripped and Xeroxed from Oliver Stone movies and Milos Forman's "Hair". You were supposed to feel bad for Max Carrigan (I think) for being drafted into Vietnam, but his character was such an asshole I found myself not really caring. Plus, the Vietnam scenes were so underdeveloped (Compared to other Vietnam War films such as "Platoon" and "Full Metal Jacket") and Max's character so forgotten by the end that I really felt the movie didn't have a message.
Continuing on the subject of characters, I thought the characters of Jojo (played by Martin Luther McCoy) and Sadie (played by Joan Osbourne lookalike Dana Fuchs) were almost unnecessary. Even though Jojo's introduction via the very cool sequence with Joe Cocker singing "Come Together" added some real light to this movie, I still didn't see the significance of characters that echoed Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin respectively. Sure, these two singers were huge influences of the 1960's, but this is a movie about Beatles music, right? I was especially lost when the Sadie character started off with Jojo's band, then went solo and got hooked on alcohol. Her successful recovery from all this was never explained in the end, which had me feeling a bit cheated when I turned off the movie.
The characters of Jojo and Sadie really show what this movie's big flaw is: the movie makers tried to cram too much into a two hour movie. Too many characters, too many subplots, too many radical messages, and (sadly) too many Beatles songs. As a result, some Beatles songs that may have been powerful in another context tended to fall flat. One such example is the section of the movie beginning with Bono singing "I Am The Walrus", and ending with Eddie Izzard's turn as Mr. Kite. That section of the movie was the exact moment where the movie lost it's message and said, "Let's demonstrate the message of the '60's by having the main characters go on an acid trip". It may have worked as a music video, but as a section of the movie it felt way too self-indulgent.
Above all, the biggest problem I had with this movie was the idea that the main characters wrote the songs themselves. I would have liked to have seen even a cameo by Paul McCartney or Ringo Starr (perhaps not Yoko Ono), or even see the characters watching a live broadcast of one of their concerts. That would have made the movie feel a little more authentic to me, but of course, that is just my opinion.
I reiterate when I say that this movie tried to bite off more than it could actually chew. It wasn't as bad as the Bee Gees' disastrous "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", which is why I gave this movie a 6 out of 10 after very careful consideration. I was debating whether to give this movie a 4 out of 10. I'll admit that it was a very ambitious movie, but at times it seemed so ambitious to the point of being haughty and arrogant. Like many big budget science fiction hits of the 1990's, this movie was great on visual effects, but not so great on a coherent storyline and characters you actually cared about. I'll definitely buy the soundtrack, because the different versions of the Beatles songs were indeed awe-inspiring. The rest of the movie, I'm sorry to say, just didn't do it for me. I know other people will like it, though, and I respect their decisions.