Across the Universe (Movie)

I grew up loving the Beatles. I practically worshiped them through high school. I not only had all their albums and memorized all of their songs, but I would go to the library, check out books on the Beatles, read them, and memorize them.

When Across the Universe came out, I had to see it.

It is one of my favorite movies of all time. You'll find it in my sidebar on the list of my favorite movies. You'll also find some of the songs from the movie soundtrack in my playlist in the sidebar (the music was so amazing I just had to get the soundtrack to this movie after I saw it -- more on this later)

The story is of the 60s. The war, drugs, the lifestyle, love, music. Coupled with this is a unique way of doing a quasi-musical movie. All the Beatles songs are sung by the main characters rather than just played as background music as in all other movies.

The voices of these actors are amazing. Megan and I watch American Idol religiously but the talent in this movie surpasses American Idol 10-fold.

Aside from the imense talent and extreme entertainment value, the movie is visually amazing. The director has an eye for original scenes and creative exposition. It starts off normal like you'd expect in any movie, but as the plot thickens, so does the visual aspect of the film. You'll just have to see it to see what I mean.

My brother claims that he didn't like it because it felt like they were cramming Beatles songs into the movie just for the sake of cramming them in and that they didn't add to the movie or even belong. While perfectly entitled to that opinion (and I'm sure there are others that will agree with him), I have now seen the movie three times and I am going to have to mostly disagree. You'll notice I said "mostly." I do admit that there is occasionally a scene in which a song is sung and it is a bit overboard and doesn't add to the movie. Still, the vocals and visual aspect is enough to make me overlook that.

This is an amazing movie all around. The acting is perfect. Very believable perforamces by every actor. If I had one complaint it's that the middle portion of the movie (the drug phase) lasts a bit too long. At first, it was very cool to watch how the director would choose to show a drugged-out world using music, colors, singing, etc. It was cool for the first song, okay for the second, over-done for the fouth, and downright annoying for the fourth. Still, a minor setback for an amazing film.

My Rating: 5/5
My Recommendation: Buy it. It's amazing.