Film’s music overwhelms ‘Universe’

In this unique take on the musical, “Across the Universe” uses the music of The Beatles to drive its story. Director Julie Taymor’s film tells the story of young lovers Jude (Jim Sturgess) and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) against the backdrop of volatile Vietnam protests. The storyline is illustrated with the musically talented cast performing 33 of The Beatles’ most notable songs.

The movie starts with Jude coming to the United States from Liverpool to find his father, a janitor at Princeton. While at Princeton he meets beatnik student Max (Joe Anderson). After Max drops out of school, he and Jude move to New York to pursue the classic carefree ‘60s lifestyle.

Max’s sister Lucy joins them in the city after her boyfriend is killed in the war. Jude and Lucy seem to be inseparable and develop a romance. But when Max is drafted, she joins a radical anti-war group, and she and Jude are torn apart by their differing activist philosophies.

The bohemian way of life Jude, Lucy and Max adopt, along with several other colorful characters, is incredibly stereotypical of the 1960s. Substance abuse, student riots and flower-wearing hippies are all featured to create the cliched norm of the decade.

Taymor, who directed the Broadway production of “The Lion King,” brings her theatrical experience to the big screen in this film. The elaborate puppets, 3-D animation and hallucinatory montages in the movie are worthy of any Broadway stage. However, the large-scale effects almost overwhelms the movie at points. The psychedelic visuals from the music number with Bono as acid guru Dr. Robert singing “I Am The Walrus” is almost too much to absorb.

While The Beatles’ songs are entertaining, they sometimes detract from the storyline. In some of the scenes, the music numbers are rigidly fit in and do not mesh well with the overall story. In those instances the music derails the direction of the plot instead of reinforcing it.

The songs alone make for a wonderful soundtrack, but they lack in their ability to tie the film together as a cohesive story as traditional musical songs would. Unlike the success of Baz Luhrmann’s “Moulin Rouge” in integrating modern music into a musical, “Across the Universe” doesn’t quite achieve the same goal. The story would have been better off with more dialogue and less singing.