The best thing about Julie Taymor's "Across the Universe" is the music, and that's because the soundtrack is essentially "The Best of the Beatles" covered by the actors. This highly sensationalized movie is a bunch of special effects that make it look like the movie, as well as the characters, are on LSD.
The movie follows the love story of two people from very different backgrounds, as the instability of the '60s foams and froths around them. Jude (Jim Sturgess) is a former dock worker from Liverpool who comes to the States to find his dad. Yes, Jude from Liverpool, and it doesn't end there.
Jude finds his dad working as a janitor at Princeton University. There, by a twist of fate, Jude meets Max (Joe Anderson), a pampered young man who hates Princeton and wants to leave the world of academia behind to go to New York and experience life?or rather, drugs, alcohol, music, and protests. When Jude meets Max's younger sister, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), he immediately falls for her, even though Lucy is already attached to a young man fighting overseas in Vietnam. When Lucy's beau dies, she moves to New York to visit with her brother and Jude, and romance blooms.
Although the movie does not use original Beatles tracks, it is essentially an elongated tribute to the Beatles and the '60s. The film takes a long time bringing the characters together, cutting back and forth between them, and confusing the audience more than entertaining it. When Lucy, Jude, Max, Sadie, Prudence, and JoJo (these names surely sound familiar) finally come together under one apartment building, the plot begins to pick up. Max gets called up to do his civic duty; Lucy starts to protest and work toward a revolution; Prudence runs away and joins the circus. Sadie (Dana Fuchs) and JoJo (Martin Luther) work on starting a band?one that plays only Beatles music. The movie does its best to incorporate the music, trying to make the seams between plot and song smooth, but instead of a movie enhanced by music, it develops into music hindered by a movie.
The storyline becomes the least important element of the movie. The music takes over, making the film one long music video worthy of MTV. Taymor's artistic conceptions, such as the soldiers?cum?Uncle Sam look-alikes dancing to "I Want You," create the atmosphere of a music video, instead of a movie enhanced by symbols. Nonetheless, perhaps one of the best parts of the movie occurs at the tail end of this scene, when the new recruits are shown marching over a Vietnam torn apart by bombs, carrying the Statue of Liberty, and singing "She's so Heavy." Here, Taymor shows what she could have done with the movie?taking the songs and giving them alternative meanings?instead of what she actually did.
The film strives to give the audience an accurate picture of how the '60s were for people trying find their ways and make their thoughts and ideas known in a world where authority was fallible at best. But the audience never feels invested in the characters, who seem superficial. Taymor tries to develop too many central characters, limiting the amount of time that can be spent with each individual. Not even the love between Lucy and Jude feels real, forced instead to fit within the confines of the music. The songs of the Beatles (well-sung and played) make the movie somewhat bearable, but if anything, skip the movie and buy the soundtrack.