Empire, 10/01/2007, p.56, 4 stars out of 5 -- "[I]t's wonderful. A testament to both the enduring emotional power of the Fab Four's music...and Taymor's unbridled artistic brio..."
Entertainment Weekly, 02/01/2008, p.59, "As a delivery system for injecting a new generation with Beatles music, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is efficient as well as playful and ferocious." -- Grade: B
New York Times, 09/14/2007, p.E12, "ACROSS THE UNIVERSE feels emotionally true both to the Beatles...and to the decade it remembers..."
Los Angeles Times, 09/14/2007, "[A] vivid, vivacious film....Music -- the Beatles' music -- lies at the heart of this film; the iconic songs, sung by the film's energetic, talented cast, propel the characters through the upheavals of the U.S. in the late 1960s."
Sight and Sound, 11/01/2007, p.48, "There are some neat hallucinogenic effects here....The infectious energy of the music lends the film a gleeful dynamism..."
Film Comment, 01/01/2008, p.76, "The starry-eyed youths that inhabit her film -- and boldly offer fresh interpretations of songs that remain sacred to millions -- carry just the right balance of whimsy and respect..."
Mojo, 04/01/2008, 131, "[W]hat unfolds as the movie blossoms, then darkens and finally finds peace and love, is a stylised musical drama set in and about a conflated American High '60s..."
Title Note
Theatrical Release: September 14, 2007
Release Note
DVD Features:
2-Disc Set Anamorphic Widescreen - 2.40 Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1 - English, Spanish Subtitles - English, French, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai - Optional Subtitles - English - Closed Captioned Additional Release Materials: Audio Commentary - Julie Taymor - Director; Elliot Goldenthal - Composer Featurettes - "2 Live Performances of 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite'"
Product Notes
The Beatles' songs may have provided the soundtrack for the lives of those coming of age in the 1960s, but their extensive catalogue acts as the literal soundtrack in this romantic musical from visionary director Julie Taymor. Newcomer Jim Sturgess stars as Jude, a young man working on the docks in Liverpool. Eager to escape, he travels to Princeton where he meets Max (Joe Anderson). But it's his meeting with Max's younger sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) that changes him. They quickly fall in love, but their relationship is tested by the chaos of the late 1960s and Max's unwilling tour in Vietnam. Throughout the film, characters burst into classics from the Beatles: frat boys sing "With a Little Help from My Friends," while Uncle Sam bursts from a recruitment poster with strains of "I Want You (She's So Heavy)." U2's Bono makes a cameo as a counterculture leader and croons "I Am the Walrus," and actor-comedian Eddie Izzard provides a trippy rendition of "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite."
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