You feel, after two hours and a bit, that the Beatles deserve better and the Sixties a more defiant touch.
Across the Universe (2007)
Runtime: 2 hrs 13 mins
Genre: Musical & Performing Arts
Starring: Jim Sturgess, Evan Rachel Wood, Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Martin Luther McCoy
Screenwriter: Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais
Story: Julie Taymor, Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais
Producer: Suzanne Todd, Jennifer Todd, Matthew Gross
Composer: Elliot Goldenthal
DVD Info
Release:
May 2, 2008
Blu-ray Features:
- Anamorphic Widescreen - 2.40
Audio:
- Dolby Digital 5.1 - English, Portuguese, Spanish
- Subtitles - English, French, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai - Optional
Additional Release Materials:
- Featurettes - 1. "Creating the Universe"
- 2. "Stars of Tomorrow"
- 3. "All About the Music"
- 4. "Moving Through the Universe"
- 5. "FX on the Universe"
- 6. "Two Live Performances of 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite'"
Reviews
It’s too long, and the ambitious imagery (strawberries turning into bombs?) occasionally misses the mark. But it’s a fun ride all the same.
The film’s too long but when it works, as in a slickly choreographed military induction scene with Taymor’s trademark giant puppets and carnival heads, it’s exhilarating.
Across the Universe is much too literal-minded to be the far-out, visionary folly she may have intended – not so much cinema on LSD as the ravings of an earnest hippie in a recovery programme.
LIKE most musicals, the visually stunning Across The Universe has its hits and misses. But, as the film uses The Beatles’ back catalogue as its songbook, there really shouldn’t have been any duff notes.
After two hours of butchered classics, it's just a relief when it's over.
What makes this the Battlefield Earth of musicals is the plot – a wafer-thin affair that might have been written by someone who once skimmed a short magazine article about the 1960s while waiting for their hair appointment.
The more this musical tried to look relevant, the more dated it felt.
So far out it ain't never coming back. This flamboyant vehicle for The Beatles' music is boldness exemplified - even if it does frequently trip on its own ambition.
All you need is love… but a coherent vision doesn’t hurt either.
Thankfully, Sturgess keeps the film grounded with a rumpled, earthy charm, and Wood brings much-needed emotional depth. And yes, the songs will strike a chord as well.
Good casting and the wonderful strangeness of Taymor's vision means that this movie is great fun.
Taymor has mistaken a deeply clichéd view of the late ’60s for a radical slice of the zeitgeist. Let it be.
It's the sort of movie non-Fab Four fans may struggle to like, occupying a space somewhere below the inspired dynamics of Moulin Rouge but well above the dated dirge that was Rent.
A load of kids singing Beatles tunes? You better believe it.
Julie Taymor's love-it-or-hate-it musical is hugely ambitious but it works brilliantly, thanks to strong performances, a fantastic script, terrifically integrated songs and Taymor's inspired direction.
This ambitious musical balances its visual outrageousness with a moving story. It's a little exhausting, but also wonderful.
'Across the Universe' is whimsical silliness, imaginatively constructed but precious and gratingly excessive.
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