Jude and Prudence show up to town to allow some more songs from the Beatles to be played. Yes sir, Across the Universe is a musical throwing it back to the 60s for a love story of sorts torn away with war and strife and LSD. If this isn't making too much sense, you're not alone. Despite a couple 5 minute naps, I will attempt to review the film as a whole.I think the movie took the easy route right from the start, and it never recovered from the decision. What I'm talking about is story structure. Obviously, all the songs are already there. So how did they make the movie? They took the songs, and they attempted to branch a story out of them to fill in the gaps. The result is high-quality music videos with small periods of "story" in between."Well, Mr. Smarty Pants, do you have any better ideas?" I do, but it's harder to pull off which is why I said they went easy. There are two types of musicals: Those that have the songs in mind and try creating a story around them (like Across the Universe), and those that have a story already in place that will be propelled forward by the songs. Personally, I feel the latter is almost always the better formula to work with, but even then it's not a perfect system. I'm just saying that it could have been a huge turn-around for this film. I mean, there might be a decent story in there somewhere, but I didn't really find it nor have the patience to put effort into searching for it.As this is a musical, we should definitely talk about the songs. Give credit to the film for trying to give modern updates to the songs with flashy graphics to help, but the characters don't add anything because nobody cares about them through the story. I will say, however, one of my biggest issues is that I think most of the songs are worse versions than the originals. Maybe that's a personal bias, who knows. My prime example is "I Want to Hold Your Hand;" the film version slows it down. That ruins the entire beat, and the lyrics aren't powerful enough to carry the weight of a slower song. The vocals of the majority of characters is great, but not everyone hits the right notes, and vocals alone aren't worth an update of these songs.Despite my inner Scrooge to humbug at these modern folks and their attempts to reminisce on previous times, I still found myself singing along with such classics as "Come Together," "Revolution," and "Hey Jude." I wouldn't even call myself the biggest Beatles fan, but those that claim to hate the band probably just haven't heard the right songs.This 2 hour + movie is not worth it for the few notable songs featured. The story drags on, and it ends up giving you the feeling of "Oh, is this the last song? Nope, here's another scene." And thus it goes on and on. Maybe I should just let it be. I don't know.Not sure where it would have fit in, but not seeing "Yesterday" featured was a big bummer. There are a couple other songs I would have preferred, but I honestly am not sure if this was album-based or what and I don't care enough to research it.Just did a little research, and I'm still unsure of how each song was chosen to appear in the film. Oh well.

Available on Blu-ray Disc (Region B)USA/UK 2007 English (Colour); Musical/Drama/Romance/Fantasy/LGBTQ (Columbia/Revolution/Team Todd); 133 minutes (12 certificate)Crew includes: Julie Taymor (Director); Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais (Screenwriters); Suzanne Todd, Jennifer Todd, Matthew Gross (Producers); Derek Dauchy, Rudd Simmons, Charles Newirth (Executive Producers); Bruno Delbonnel (Cinematographer); Mark Friedberg (Production Designer); Françoise Bonnot (Editor); Elliot Goldenthal (Composer)Cast includes: Evan Rachel Wood (Lucy Carrigan), Jim Sturgess (Jude Feeny), Joe Anderson (Max Carrigan), Dana Fuchs (Sadie), Martin Luther McCoy (Jo-Jo), T.V. Carpio (Prudence); Joe Cocker (Bum, Pimp & Mad Hippie), Bono (Dr Robert), Eddie Izzard (Mr Kite), Salma Hayek (Singing Nurse)Academy Award nomination: Costume Design (Albert Wolsky); Golden Globe nomination: Picture - Musical/Comedy"All you need is love."After jumping ship in the US, a Liverpool dockworker (Sturgess) befriends a college drop-out (Anderson), whose idealistic sister (Wood) he falls for, and is caught up in the anti-Vietnam War fervour, whilst struggling as an artist.A kaleidoscopic, '60s-set jukebox musical written for the big screen (by the English creators of THE LIKELY LADS and PORRIDGE), inspired by over 30 Beatles compositions, the lyrics of which drive the plot forward more than the relatively sparse (spoken) dialogue.Wonderfully dreamlike at times, colourful and dynamic, with well sung, nicely judged performances from the young, fresh leads, and fun musical cameos from Cocker, an American-accented Bono, Izzard, and (multiple) singing nurse Hayek.Blu-ray Extras: Commentary, Featurettes, Deleted/Extended Scenes, Stills Gallery, Behind-the-Scenes Footage. ***½ (7/10)

Maybe the big screen experience was needed, but I doubt it as I saw this loathsome waste of film on late-night television recently and was aghast. What movie exec. green-lighted this terrible, relentless onslaught of bad musical renditions of Beatle music and the eyesore ramble of images that escorted them? I'd be surprised to learn he/she is still around as the movie has only made back roughly half of its shooting budget as of this writing (going by IMDb's stats). I wouldn't know where to start in criticizing this mess- it's all that bad! And U2's Bono took an ill-advised role that's still leaving me scratching my head. I thought he was a thinking man's artist. All in all, this film makes me pine away for another viewing of 1978's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and cry out for a remake.

I liked this movie. That said, I think this movie is terrible. The plot is boring and characters are more often than not pointless. What redeems this movie, and makes it a guilty pleasure are the music scenes. They are creatively designed, and the singing is decent. When viewed as a series of unconnected music videos, this is very enjoyable. However, that doesn't make it a good movie. Without any real narrative structure, the set design is really the only shining part of this movie. I would recommend this movie to people who enjoy creativity, and fans of music, but most other people would just find it boring. So, while flawed, I can still enjoy this movie, and hope to see more like it in the future.