KellenKing I'm not a big follower of musicals, but I loved this film. The Beatles songs were very well done and the interpretations were striking. Touches a lot of bases throughout the film...love, music, politics, etc...and does so with grace.

Marc Israel I am not a fan of mashed up song movies using actors to sing parts of pop tunes that are slotted to formulate a story whose strengths are the songs. The fact of the actual shoehorning of a story into a soundtrack by movie makers another musical blasphemy.An Amazon Prime membership allowed me to reconsider this prejudice.... I NEED TO TRUIST MY GUT. While I did like 3 imaginative scenes where the song was turned around for story' sake and it worked or the visual added something to the story as opposed to the story setting up the song.. The Paul, Janis and Jimmy lookalikes were varied out of context and then Joe Cocker and Bono cameos become all out confusion. Cocker did cover Beatles tunes, as does U2, so how should we see their star presence, especially with Cocker, as Bono has a role, albeit played to and for the audience.I'll know better in the future. If it walks like a pop money grab and talks like a pop money grab, be glad you have discernment of taste.The last piece is that despite Across The Universe being properly described as Hair meets Moulon Rouge, it is the time period captured for those that were affected as impressionable at the time that appears to have enamored the recommendations of those I respect. I was 6, am knowledgeable, but don't romanticize such times.I remember the TV as bringing a reality into my home that didn't need such horror reinvented for a psychedelic romantic excursion especially seen in times where our reality (at least in America) is heading back to a similar lying governmental state.

livvl My music teacher in middle school showed my class this, and i loved it so much. Since then i went home and listen to all the ATU songs, and later i started listening to The Beatles. (Who are now my favorite band) This is my favorite musical, and also one of my favorite movies. The music in this movie is absolutely fantastic, i mean obviously is great music because the songs are The Beatles songs. But Also the "Across The Universe" versions of the songs are actually really great. I love how they put The Beatles songs to life in the movie, it's a very beautiful movie.Even though there are music constantly, i feel like it doesn't get as annoying as other musicals. The "music videos" are very well portrayed, and really bring some of the Beatles spirit.

michaelmunkvold "Across the Universe" is like a bad Beatles cover band. It means well, tries hard, and plays the band's catalog with love in its heart - but it's a waste of time. At the end of the show, you find yourself wishing that you had stayed home and listened to the real thing. Like most cover versions of Beatles songs, "Across the Universe" is awful, a poorly written and badly sung music video masquerading as a movie. The story is shallow, the characters paper-thin, and the musical numbers ridiculously over-the-top. That it drags some of the greatest pop music of the 20th century down with it just adds insult to injury.The plot, if you must: Lucy, Jude, Maxwell, Sadie and Prudence (get it?) sing Beatles songs as they move along with the change and upheaval of the 1960s, with each song representing a key event of the times. They drop acid while singing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". They tune in, turn on and drop out to "Revolution". They get drafted to "Happiness is a Warm Gun". Finally, as if there was any doubt, they realize that "All You Need is Love".I wasn't there for the 1960s, so I can't say what those times were like for people coming of age in that moment of history. No one involved in this movie seems to know, either. The themes of the time - the anti-war movement, changing sexual mores, drug experimentation - are given such shallow treatment that they have no real resonance for the audience. It's as if the protagonists are standing outside of the world they live in, so apart from the scene that they could have walked in from another movie. They know the words, but not the music.Wow, do they not know the music. The cast members are all technically proficient singers, but they put no feeling, no soul, into their renditions of Beatles songs. Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood, who play star-crossed lovers Jude and Lucy, sing "Strawberry Fields Forever" during a breakup scene, but with none of the loneliness that John Lennon put into every syllable. Joe Anderson, who plays Maxwell, sings "With a Little Help From My Friends" during a party sequence, but his rendition has none of the childlike joy that Ringo Starr brought to the original. Sturgess' "Happiness is a Warm Gun", sung while he unconvincingly shoots heroin, is so bad it's offensive.Writer/director Julie Taymor makes each song into a ridiculously big set piece. The "Strawberry Fields" number has giant, papier-mache strawberries. "Happiness is a Warm Gun" is accompanied by Salma Hayek floating in a syringe. I don't think I can describe the "Why Don't We Do It In the Road?" number in a family-friendly blog.Taymor is clearly a devoted Beatles fan, and works really hard to make her audience love these songs. Thing is, the band doesn't need her help. The Beatles are part of our cultural DNA; they don't need to be introduced to new generations, because they have been transcending generations for 50 years. Like a bad cover band, this movie has no reason to exist, and just makes us pine for the real thing.