Across the Universe: A Moving Picture Review
As the title implies, I saw Across the Universe even though I thought it was gonna suck. Which it did to a degree, though maybe not as much as I expected.
When I saw the trailer a while back I thought, 'Gee, this looks contrived and superficial with a side of hackneyed.' Then I went to see it and it was all three of those things. Don't go see it if you want something like, character development or plot, because you won't get either of those. The movie mostly goes like this: 'some vague plot stuff --> contrived segue into Beatles song --> repeat until credits.' To remind you that it is set in the sixties and the times are a-changin', they toss out people watching news stories about Martin Luther King, Jr's death and one character being drafted into 'Nam. I wasn't big on most of the renditions of the songs and the way in which they were shoehorned into the movie, the biggest offender of this being the 'Dear Prudence' sequence. Of course, the characters are all named after Beatles songs: Jude, the protagonist; Lucy, his love interest; Maxwell, Lucy's brother (curiously not a serial murderer); Prudence, the lesbian cheerleader runaway whose presence is really unnecessary; Sadie, the Janis Joplin to Jojo's Jimi Hendrix. I will let you guess which song they sing to cheer up our main character. YOU'LL NEVER FIGURE IT OUT.
So, the good bits? The cinematography was mostly very good, and many of the visuals during the songs were very well done (though they vary in their cleverness concept-wise.) Eddie Izzard as trippy circus ringmaster Mr. Kite was great, and James Urbaniak as a record company suit made me go 'yay!'
Over all? Across the Universe ain't great. Oddly enough, I think I would still rank this movie higher than I rank most musicals.
When I saw the trailer a while back I thought, 'Gee, this looks contrived and superficial with a side of hackneyed.' Then I went to see it and it was all three of those things. Don't go see it if you want something like, character development or plot, because you won't get either of those. The movie mostly goes like this: 'some vague plot stuff --> contrived segue into Beatles song --> repeat until credits.' To remind you that it is set in the sixties and the times are a-changin', they toss out people watching news stories about Martin Luther King, Jr's death and one character being drafted into 'Nam. I wasn't big on most of the renditions of the songs and the way in which they were shoehorned into the movie, the biggest offender of this being the 'Dear Prudence' sequence. Of course, the characters are all named after Beatles songs: Jude, the protagonist; Lucy, his love interest; Maxwell, Lucy's brother (curiously not a serial murderer); Prudence, the lesbian cheerleader runaway whose presence is really unnecessary; Sadie, the Janis Joplin to Jojo's Jimi Hendrix. I will let you guess which song they sing to cheer up our main character. YOU'LL NEVER FIGURE IT OUT.
So, the good bits? The cinematography was mostly very good, and many of the visuals during the songs were very well done (though they vary in their cleverness concept-wise.) Eddie Izzard as trippy circus ringmaster Mr. Kite was great, and James Urbaniak as a record company suit made me go 'yay!'
Over all? Across the Universe ain't great. Oddly enough, I think I would still rank this movie higher than I rank most musicals.