Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Across the Universe from director Julie Taymor is a revolutionary rock musical that re-imagines America in the turbulent late-1960s a time when battle lines were being drawn at home and abroad. When young dockworker Jude (Jim Sturgess) leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in America he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) a rich but sheltered American girl who joins the growing anti-war movement in New York s Greenwich Village. As the body count in Vietnam rises political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad. With a cameo by Bono Across the Universe is the kind of movie you watch again like listening to a favorite album. (Roger Ebert CHICAGO SUN-TIMES)System Requirements:Run Time: 133 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MUSICALS/MUSICALS Rating: PG-13 UPC: 043396194625 Manufacturer No: 19462

Amazon.com:
Set in America during the Vietnam War, Across the Universe is a powerful love story set against a backdrop of political and social unrest: it's a story of soul-searching, self-doubt, and individual powerlessness cleverly conveyed through a multitude of Beatles songs. Like young adults all across America during the 1960's, Jude (Jim Sturgess), Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), Max (Joe Anderson), Sadie (Dana Fuchs), Prudence (T.V. Carpio), and JoJo (Martin Luther) are in turmoil over the war; questioning their individual roles in the war effort and struggling to find a way to hold true to their beliefs while making a difference in the world. While love proves a powerful uniting force, its limitations become clear as relationships are strained and broken over individual perceptions of responsibility to cause and country. A fairly bizarre juxtaposition of extremely stylized, almost hallucinogenic scenes of swirling colors and reflections, highly choreographed dance segments, seemingly commonplace character interaction, and emotionally packed close-up footage of characters lost in contemplative song, this film imparts a good sense of the confusion and passion of the time and is at once powerful, invigorating, and disturbing. The film runs a bit long at 2-hours 11-minutes and several segments drag noticeably thanks to some incredibly slow song tempos. Warning: this production may change how you think about a favorite Beatles song forever. --Tami Horiuchi



Beyond Across the Universe

On Blu-ray

The Deluxe Soundtrack

Beatles audio CD

Stills from Across the Universe (click for larger image)















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Rating: - One of the Best Movies Ever
I don't know how the critics got it so wrong when this movie came out. It was barely in the theaters long at all. Julie Taymor is such a genius & all the actors did a great job. I love the reinterpretation of the Beatles music. I don't usually buy movies, but I had to own this one.

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Rating: - Days of Innocence
The music, the visuals . . . this movie is simply a masterpiece. But more than that, it may be the only movie that truly captured the innocence of those times. I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area during the late sixties and witnessed the Summer of Love as well as the war protests at Berkeley, tear gas, ranks of police and all! The songs of the Beatles were the soundtrack of my teens, and I remember witnessing the civil rights riots, participating in peace marches, debating fiercely with classmates, but even more so with my parents who could not understand why their perfect daughter had become such a rebel and talked treason! My generation wanted to make a positive difference in the world so badly, and with total innocence, we set out to do what we could. Like Lucy, we pitched in where we could. We did not understand why adults were so angry or why the police and National Guard were called out to stop us. We simply wanted justice and peace in the world. What an amazing place and time that was to be young and alive! This movie really took me back to those days and how much we wanted to change the world and make it a better place, and how willing we were to take action and speak out.

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Rating: - I feel like going Helter Skelter on the positive reviews.
How anyone that calls themselves a fan of The Beatles music can give this "film" anything more than 1 star after hearing the horrendous version/cover/bastardization of one of the greatest Beatles songs of all time,Helter Skelter,should be ashamed of themselves.

Across The Universe should be shot across the universe never to be heard from again.

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Rating: - if mark chapman's bullet hadn't killed john lennon then this film would have
basically the reason for this movie's existence is that sony acquired the rights to the beatles songs a few years ago.
The 50-50 joint venture -- Sony/ATV Music Publishing -- owns rights to more than 250 Beatles songs.

sony also owns columbia pictures, which made Across the Universe.

so basically all this movie is is a device to popularise the beatles back-catalogue to make some cash for sony, which is stuggling a little in today's download culture.

all Across the Universe wants to do is remind you of the beatles and their tracks - which it does by cramming/culling as many of their songs into the running time as possible - so you go out and buy them.

which is why this movie is bereft of a decent storyline, decent singing, and very little charm and none of the creativity for which the beatles were famous.

I don't think the filmmakers care if Across The Universe sucks or not - Julie Taymor was replaced by the studio and the film was recut by Sony itself to its own specifications - as long as it gets the punters to fork out for old beatles tracks.

Across the Universe is just a cheap and nasty exploitation movie.
fortunately it was not very successful. Bowl Brush HolderSTAINLESS TOILET BRUSH W/STAND

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Rating: - Eye candy and genius
This movie blew me away. I heard mixed reviews, but finally broke down to see it, and within the first 30 seconds I was hooked. Beatles Purists comlpain, but I love the Beatles passionately and felt that this movie only enhanced my understanding of the whole era and their music.

Yes, the plot is flimsy, so don't go expecting to find some amazing dialogue and story line. I do love the way that the movie outlines actual events in history though. It begins with a kid from Liverpool coming to find his father in a very apple pie America. Many of the scenes are just pure fun (and made me wish I could have been in this film) such as the scene in the bowling alley or the one set at Princeton - "I've Just Seen a Face," and "A Little Help From My Friends." We travel through time to the draft for the Vietnam war, the Detroit riots, the Electric Koolaid acid tests and the Merry Pranksters in their magic bus, the disillusionment that came from the violence of the counter-revolution, and finally it all wraps up neatly with the rooftop performance- mirroring the Beatles' own final concert.

The music is for the most part outstanding, and the visual representations of the songs are pure genius at times. Particularly outstanding were the visual representations of the songs "I Want You/She's So Heavy," depicting soldiers being sent off to war with Uncle Sam pointing his finger and singing "I Want You." (How could you not love that?) Also, Bono's psychedilic "I am the Walrus" leads into an underwater version of "Because." It made me feel like I was in an altered state of mind despite my sobriety.

There are cute little Beatles references throughout, such as names of characters, mention of someone coming in through the bathroom window, etc. It gets a little tiresome at times though. The movie was about 30 minutes longer than it needed to be. Still, a huge achievement, and incredibly creative and stunningly beautiful. It's even better to watch the second time when you can skip through all the boring dialogue, and jump to your favorite musical numbers.