DailyView: Day 211, Movie 298

This was my second Beatles inspired DailyView today in honor of the new Disney + documentary by Peter Jackson, The Beatles: Get Back (which was tremendous). Unfortunately, neither of the DailyView entries were up to par.

That certainly goes for teh Beatles juke box musical, Across the Universe.

When Jude (Jim Sturgess) left Liverpool to travel to America in search of his absent father, he met the rambunctious Max (Joe Anderson) and his lovely sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). The trio were carefree and happily singing Beatles songs, until Max is drafted to head to the Vietnam War.

There are many problems with this musical, but the music is not one of them. The Beatles songs are great and if you just listen to them, you might enjoy yourself. Of course, if you just listen to them, you may as well play the CD instead.

So much of the plot and a bunch of characters are involved here simply to get Beatles songs into the film. Many of them make no sense in the overall story of the movie and are there just to say they are there. Bono of U2 showed up just to sing The Benefit of Mr. Kite. I believe that is the total of his appearance.

Characters are introduced with names that tell you they are going to have a song around them. There was a Prudence (T.V. Carpio), Lucy, Jude and JoJo (Martin Luther).

If this was intended as simply an extended music video with the different Beatles songs, I could deal with it. However, they are pretending that this is a feature film and that should have some kind of compelling… or at least understandable story. Across the Universe does not. Across the Universe tries to tie all of the 1960s unrest and major events with Beatles songs when they should have tied them to a story.