Becky and I went to see Across The Universe tonight at the AMC theaters in Highlands Ranch, Colorado with our friends Rod and Kimberly. The Yahoo website at Across The Universe describes the movie as follows:
“A romantic musical told mainly through numerous Beatles songs performed by the characters. A young man from Liverpool comes to America during the Vietnam War to find his father. He winds up in Greenwich Village, where he falls in love with an American girl who has grown up sheltered in the suburbs. Together they experience the sweeping changes of America in the late 60’s.”
The Review
Across The Universe has some great music from the 60’s and in particular The Beatles. However, you would be better off buying a collection of Beatles songs that are actually played by The Beatles and staying home and listening to the real music rather than going to this film. It’s long, too long and by the end you’re tired of hearing the lead character’s voice with far too much drama that makes no sense to anyone who isn’t on drugs or wasn’t involved in creating this film.
There is plenty of symbolism in this movie. No, there is way too much symbolism included in this off the wall politically motivated “musical”. At several points in the film, I thought we were watching a convoluted set of Pink Floyd MTV music videos put to music from The Beatles and co-starring actors who were supposed to look and sound like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. There is even a cameo appearance from U2 singer Bono where he appears as “The Walrus” and drives a psychedelic bus from the East to the West coast. It made tons of sense. Not really, it fit the rest of the movie since it made absolutely no sense at all, but made for good filler and he sounded really good singing The Walrus song.
I can’t forget the scene where you think you’re watching “The Grudge meets Yoko Ono”, which was super creepy and of course played to Beatles music. If you see the film you’ll know what I’m talking about the minute you see the dead women splash into the water.
I think that our friend Rod summed up Across The Universe the best when he said, “I feel like I just watched a 2.5 hour Coke commercial”. In conclusion, you can score another loser for Hollywood.
We debated if we should recommend this one as a Rental, but we’re pretty confident that you’ll be as bored as we were, after about an hour into the film, even with the good music. However, you can at least fast forward through the slow parts, which we didn’t have the luxury of doing. Although, I must say that some people apparently really liked this movie, so it is probably a mixed bag. My recommendation is to see it at your own risk when you have nothing better to do.
Once again, this weekend in movies has turned out to be a total waste of time at the theater.
John – * Don’t Bother
Becky – * Don’t Bother
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