Pros: Some of the musical scenes are truly ingenious.
Cons: Sometimes Julie Taymor got just a little bit too weird for me
I had heard a lot about "Across the Universe" before I rented it, but really wasn't sure what to expect. Nearly everyone I knew who had seen the film had a powerful reaction to it- either positive or negative. From what my friends and family told me, I gathered that "Across the Universe" isn't a movie that most people find "okay." You tend to either love it or hate it.
I had experienced that similar disconnect of opinions with another musical, "Moulin Rouge," and I ended up loving that one. I had also heard "Across the Universe" compared to "Moulin Rouge" by some people, so I was eager to see it.
Well, "Across the Universe" was worth watching, but it definitely was no "Moulin Rouge."
Spectacle and song seemed to edge out plot in the making of "Across the Universe." The plot is somewhat threadbare and simplistic. The main theme is that of "boy meets girl, loses girl" etc.
One plot device that I really enjoyed is the way the movie introduces diverse characters from different parts of the world and then has them meet up later. The main character is Jude, a poor young man in Liverpool, England. Looking to escape the dead-end life in his hometown, he travels to America. Searching for the father who abandoned him as a child, he visits a university and runs into college student Max Carrigan. Invited to come home with Max for a family visit, he meets Max's sister, Lucy.
We have, as a matter of fact, already been introduced to Lucy. The musical number where both Lucy and Jude are introduced is arranged in a very clever way. We see Lucy dancing with her boyfriend at the school prom, then cut to Jude in a bar on the other side of the world. The same song is playing in each scene (though in different styles), tying the two people together. This technique is later utilized in a scene involving two funerals from two very different walks of life. The message is that no matter who we are or where we are from, music ties us together. The music of a generation, of course, being a central theme in this movie.
Max drops out of school, and he and Jude move to New York. There landlady/housemate is Sadie, an aspiring singer. Two other minor characters, JoJo (an African American guitarist who has fled the Detroit riots) and Prudence (a young runaway who is struggling to come to terms with her independence and sexuality) become friends of there's. Lucy soon follows Jude to New York and moves in with him.
There was a lot of intriguing things going on with some of these minor characters, who, at times, were more interesting than the central characters of Jude and Lucy. I found myself wishing that the movie focused a little more on them. One can't complain about a musical having too much music, and, after all, this is the Beatles, but I can't help but think if they had not tried quite so hard to work so many Beatles songs into the movie, they could have developed the minor characters more, or at least worked on the plot a little.
Another thing to note about "Across the Universe" is its sheer weirdness. Julie Taymor uses puppets, masks, animation, and psychedelic special effects in many of the songs. Sometimes this works well. When Max is at the parole office, singing about the army, effects such as goose-stepping masked soldiers are creepy and enhance both song and movie. Strawberry Fields, with scenes of Jude throwing red paint on canvas and crushing strawberries interspersed with scenes from Vietnam worked for me, until the bombs over Saigon were replaced with giant strawberries. No, I'm not kidding.
And midway through the movie, the main characters embark' on a massive drug trip, complete with rainbow bus and a circus of dancing puppets. Monty Python-esque cutouts in garish colors and heavily made-up actors lip-synching while going through gyrations is interesting for a few minutes, but these scenes went on and on. It made me think, "What on earth is this.and why am I sitting here watching it?" If these scenes had been removed or pared down and the screen time used to flesh out the characters or give more dimension to the plot, the movie would have been greatly improved.
Overall, I enjoyed "Across the Universe." It was flawed, too avant-garde at times, but enjoyable. The characters are likable, the plot, though simple, is engaging, and, of course, the music is great. The musical scenes are somewhat hit or miss; some parts are ingenious, others, in my opinion, just don't work. But it is certainly different. There are worse ways to spend two hours on a Friday night.