Across The Universe reminded me of when children draw terrible pictures of things and everyone says that they look great because the children are so damn cute and no one has the heart to say that the pictures aren’t really that great at all. I’m not entirely sure if that metaphor makes any sense, but what I do know is that Across The Universe, though a valiant effort, is a failure. It is not so much because the film is a failure. Actually, the film is visually adventurous and original without being obnoxious (wait, I just remembered the “Mr. Kite” scene). OK, so it’s also obnoxious. This wouldn’t be a huge problem if it wasn’t Beatles music that was being subjected to the obnoxiousness. Butitis.
Roughly every other scene is cringe-worthy. Yeah, I said it…cringe-worthy; Hyphenated. To make matters worse, every other scene is amazing. I’m not sure if it is a question of some over-editing, but it seemed the film had no rules…and no real direction. The interpretation of many of the songs is taken too literally, and you feel as if you’re being banged over the head with a musical cliche every 5 minutes. The characters names are Jude, Max, Lucy, Prudence, Sadie, Jo Jo…and while it is adorable in that little kid kind of way, it gets a bit tiresome at parts. Prudence’s character gets depressed and locks herself in a closet…and you know…you just know it’s coming. “Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play?” It’s so cute, it’s annoying.
While I do tend to get annoyed at anyone attempting a Beatles cover, I’ll admit there were a few moments where I was sold on the idea. The film opens with a beautiful acappella version of the first few lines of “Girl,” with newcomer Jim Sturgess doing his best Ewan McGregor a la Moulin Rouge. The too short of an introduction is massacred by a cheesy montage of political footage and scenes from later in the film set to Sadie’s rendition of “Helter Skelter.” There is actually a scene towards the end where bits of that track are tied in to “Across the Universe,” and it’s actually chill inducing (in a good way). Bono does a great impression of Bono as he sings “I am the Walrus,” another highlight that almost gets ruined by overly trippy (and there’s that word again, “cliche”) shots of the characters tripping on a bed, and tripping on a bus. Sure, the song is about tripping, surely, but it comes off a bit tacky. They also U2′d up the song a bit with Larry Mullen drumming circa War.
