Film Review: Across The Universe

by Mike Chapple, Liverpool Daily Post

Across The Universe, (Cert. 12A, 131 mins)
Stars: Jim Sturgess, Evan Rachel Wood, Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Martin Luther, T.V. Carpio
Directed by Julie Taymor

The concept of building the foundation of a film around Beatles classics performed by other artists has been tried before - to spectacularly disastrous effect.

All This And World War II bombed (pun intended) at the box office on its release in 1977. A patchwork documentary of wartime clips it was a Hiroshima job of unintentionally hilarious bad taste featuring the likes of two Frankies (Valli and Laine) alternately warbling A Day in The Life  and Maxwell’s Silver Hammer while poor  blighters their heads blown off.

Laugh? You would if you could still find a copy to look at.

And then there's the film version of Sgt Pepper starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. Er, nuff said.

So the omens were not good for Julie Taymor’s Across The Universe which had a fitting Liverpool premiere at the wonderful Woolton Picture House just a stone’s throw from where Macca first met Lennon at St Peter’s Church Hall half a century ago.

It’s already had a critical panning from an unsympathetic British national press who have a pack mentality when it comes to sticking the boot in. But Taymor’s star-crossed love story about Scouser Jude (Jim Sturgess) and his Big Apple love Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood)   set against the backdrop of 60s Liverpool, New York and Vietnam, won enthusiastic applause from the first night audience which was neither undeserved or simply based on home town solidarity.

Yes, there are flaws here.

Clocking in at over two hours it’s far too long for such a flimsy boy meets girl plot. It’s also sometimes excruciatingly contrived no more so than when the plot is manipulated to allow for a particular song to be introduced, Dear Prudence being a cringe-worthy case in point. 

And where Hey Jude and All You Need is Love are going to fit in can be seen from a mile off.

But there are major plus points too. The delivery of many of the songs are breath taking. Sturgess, who has a sound Liverpool accent, warrants a shiver down the spine as he sings the wistful Girl on the banks of the Mersey, With A Little Help From  My Friends  is a little bundle of joy and Wood’s sweet-voiced rendition of If I Fell would  melt the coldest heart.

Some of Taymor’s animation enhanced set pieces are absolute corkers too especially an astonishing Vietnam draft scene in which an Uncle Sam recruiting poster springs to life to perform  I Want You (She’s so Heavy) while chisel-faced drill sergeants perform a dance of death. A bloody Strawberry Fields is a mini anti-war masterpiece as well.

So as pure entertainment  it’s nowhere as bad as the po-faced press pack wolves would have you believe with evocatively filmed  guess the Merseyside location shots the icing on the cake for local audiences, (although that old perennial  Stanley Dock is a dead giveaway as always).

Ultimately it’s a brave but clumsy venture which nevertheless deserves attention especially if you are a Beatles fan.

Macca's already given it a double thumbs up so what more do you really need to know?

mikechapple@dailypost.co.uk