Across the Universe

Columbia Pictures

Let me first say that I loathe musicals. I have since high school when I loved acting, but hated musicals. I still hate movie musicals like Chicago. Its not a movie, just a celluloid rendering of stage song and dance. I hated Moulin Rouge when it was on HBO. I have refused to watch Rent despite friends and roommates belting out lyrics at me.

That said, I really wanted to see Across the Universe. It was everything I hopes it would be. It is a musical love set in the ‘60s story told through Beatles songs. Almost a rock opera, but thankfully, not quite.

Through the cast of characters, predictably named Jude, Lucy and Prudence, we see lovers from different backgrounds meeting and falling for one another in New York during the heyday of psychedelia and Vietnam War protests.

What makes this movie so interesting to watch is not just the fantastic choreography and visual effects (which deserve Oscar nominations), but the reinterpretation of songs you’ve heard so many times before.

‘Dear Prudence’ becomes a plea for the girl going through a rocky patch to let herself out of the locked closet. ‘Let It Be’ is sung by a boy during an inner city race riot taking shelter behind a burnt out car. “I Want You So Bad” is sung by the Uncle Sam poster and sergeants at the Induction Center, overwhelming any attempts of escaping Uncle Sam’s Army. “Hey Jude” becomes a plea to come back to the girl you once loved, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” any elegy for Martin Luther King, Jr.

There should be Oscar nominations for costumes, screenplay, and visual effects if not editing for this film. It is not a commercial blockbuster, but it plays with the senses so well. Taking something so overdone as a biopic of the 1960s and making it watchable. Singing cameos that are fun: Joe Cocker as a bum (Come Together), Eddie Izzard as a Flying Circus style Ringmaster (For the Benefit of Mr. Kite), Bono as Ken Kesey (I am the Walrus) and Salma Hayek’s irresistible nurse giving a dose for While My Guitar Gently Weeps. It seems like every countercultural event make sit in here, from Timothy Leary’s Millbrook to Janis Joplin’s split with Big Brother and the Holding Company on to the SDS bombing and the Beatles’ own concert from the roof of Apple Records. I was hoping to see the Grateful Dead smuggled into the Columbia University takeover, but alas.

One last thing. Spoiler alert. The end sucks.

Dan in Real Life

Buena Vista Pictures

They’re already calling this Steve Carell’s mistake. In truth I wasn’t expecting a whole lot. With the exception of Little Miss Sunshine, Steve Carell’s acting isn’t much different from one movie to the next. So how is this movie different? Its worse, that’s how.

Simple story, boy meets girl, she’s brother’s girl, boy tries to get girl. There are plenty of attempts at outcuting any movie this year. There are moodily cute teenagers, cute family reunion, and a cute cabin by the shore torn out of a Land’s End catalog. Add it all together and you get a loose pile of beach muck, just down the bank from said cabin.

Remember The Family Stone? Sound similar? As corny as that movie was it left you feeling warm and fuzzy. “Dan” tries so hard for fuzziness it probably needs another round of full-family hide and seek.

That’s not to say that there aren’t good moments. You can’t help laughing along with Juliette Binoche trapped in a shower with a fully dressed Steve Carell. Binoche brings levity to every scene she’s in. Dane Cook is just annoying enough to get you to root for the good guy. John Mahoney plays the dad as effortlessly as ever. Sidenote: When was the last time John Mahoney didn’t play Dad. Even as a drag performing West Hollywood club owner, he was still the understanding Dad.

The soundtrack is bland and butts into the movie when it should stay unnoticed. It wants to be lingering in the background and helping the scenes along, adding feeling instead of awkwardness. Instead it chimes in like a barely-muted cellphone ring.

I’m not saying this is a bad movie. If you are bored one afternoon, seen everything else playing, need to a reason to get away from whatever, this is an excuse. But it is a movie to rent along with something else, so at least one rental will seem worth the money.