Actually, I agree with his review totally, or would had I thought the movie worth that much thought. It’s pretty fluff, that’s all, and I stopped trying to find value in pretty fluff back when those songs were new.
The more I think about what I disliked so much about this movie, the more one particular point comes to mind. As soon as each, um, Beatle-named character appears, you’re on notice that there’s a scene coming up in which “their” song is going to be tortuously shoehorned into the plot. So there’s this thing running in the back of your mind, every time you hear the name Jude, wondering when “Hey Jude” is gonna happen. This made each character seem even more like a convenient–and artificial–construct whose entire purpose was to check off the plot points; *not *to be a real, living, breathing human being.
This also made it so that, when the song finally appears, its scope is limited: it’s about only *this *character, in *this *time and *this *place: it’s too specific. By trying too hard to make it fit, they’ve stripped each song of its universal appeal. I think it would have been far more effective to acknowledge the universal quality of each song. You know how, when you’re in a breakup, or newly in love, every song on the radio seems to have been written about your situation? They should have emphasized that quality of great universal pop songs. In other words, that sequence near the end, when “Hey Jude” finally does happen, would have been just as effective–far more effective, I’d argue–if his name had been Bill, or George–anything but Jude.
Okay, I just watched this last night and I was prepared not to like it. I’m not terribly fond of musicals in general, I thoroughly disliked Moulin Rouge and I’m waaay more versed in Beatles trivia and ‘60s lore than is strictly healthy. I also have a terribly love/hate relationship with the Beatles’ music due to an ex who was really, REALLY obsessed with the band. This explains both my encyclopedic awareness of Beatle trivia as well as my long antipathy to the band which has been thawing quite a bit in the past five or so years. On the other hand, I really like Julie Taymor and the SO is extremely fond of musicals so we watched it.
And I have to say I really liked it. See, I always perceive musicals as having an innate suspension of disbelief built in because c’mon! People in real life don’t suddenly start singing and dancing around with phantom music swelling as strangers in the street suddenly start a perfectly choreographed dance routine–that’s just ludicrous. Okay, so first off we have the automatic musical “pass.”
So I’m watching it and yeah, all the songs are very iteratively matched to what the actors are doing and I’m thinking “waitaminute, a song from Let It Be in what HAS to be like '67? BS!” and then it hits me that what I’m seeing is a weirdly alternate reality thing. See, the '60s as they were had the indelible stamp of the Beatles all over everything–none of it would’ve happened that way without them, period. So I’m seeing the movie as a world in which the Beatles never happened but nevertheless is inextricably bound to them such that it felt as though the characters were creating the music that had to be there for their world to exist. I felt like each scene was making the Beatles happen in a weird sort of way. So no, the characters weren’t named after Beatle’s songs–the Beatle’s songs came into existence in response to the characters who made them necessary. Is this making any sense at all? It was like watching a black and white movie become technicolor, like the transition from Kansas to Oz.
So yes, Prudence is being called out of her funk by a song about her, Jojo is defined by Joe Cocker singing him into existence, Sadie brings to life the grittiest of the Beatle’s songs, Max is just singing about how he feels assing around with his buddies, Jude is telling Lucy what he thinks of her politicization and his fear that it will damage her, it’s not a question of the well loved songs being misused, it’s NEW songs coming into being in response to the world–as they did originally but we’ve already seen that movie before.
I also realized that this movie is not for us old people who were there when it all happened the first time, it’s for the younger folks who think of the music and the things that happened as old dead history. Sure it’s '60s lite, but it’s no more intended to be a serious history than Grease is supposed to accurately depict the '50s. It does give a visceral impression of some of the things that drove us then, both the heavy duty scary issues that scarred us as well as the joy, love and fun that also characterized the time.
And just like a good Pixar movie, while the younger ones absorb the top level message and feel the oldsters are catching the neat little hommages and in jokes that we can point out to the kids and feel a little like the cool ones again before we pick up our canes and chase 'em off our lawns. 
I also want to point out that while almost every character had a Beatles inspired name, only two songs were direct name references used during the movie–“Hey Jude” and “Dear Prudence.” No Sexy Sadie, Get Back, Lovely Rita, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, Doctor Robert, Martha My Dear, Julia–I’m on the fence about Mr. Kite, and yes Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds was played over the ending credits. Any rate, even though the setup made us expect it most of the name checks didn’t happen.
I saw the use of the archetypal Janis and Jimi characters as just a way for someone who obviously loved them to give them a chance to have a happy ending. Really, choking on vomit at age 27 is a sad end to fine artists–in this alternate sixties that never happened I can’t be too mad about them living happily ever after.
Really, after all the years of disliking the Beatles’ music for slightly irrational reasons I found that seeing them reimagined as something new and removed from what I know are the actual stories gave me a new perspective and made me fall in love with some music from my childhood all over again.
I loved the movie, but then, for the longest time, my favorite Beatles song was “So Happy Together” (Yes, I know, I know. :rolleyes: )
Honestly, for a lot of the songs, my reaction was “Wait, this was a Beatles song?!” 
Having joined the Air Force, it was fun to compare my experience at the Military Entrance Processing Station with Max’s misadventure at the Induction Center. My experience involved more standing in line, and slightly fewer dancing NCOs.
It seemed to me that as soon as Jude went back to Liverpool, the plot of the movie kinda spun out to wrap itself up rather quickly, as if they were about to run out of songs or something.
Some of the complaints about the movie seem just a tad silly. You’re upset that we see a bunch of guys fucking off while “With a Little Help From My Friends” playing? I mean, OK, we could have that song playing during one of the couple of Vietnam fighting scenes, but that’d be a bit twisted.
I honestly think the movie would have flowed better if they hadn’t focused on Prudence, JoJo, and Sadie as much as they did, but then, we’d have missed out on some good songs. The movie was pretty much about Jude and Lucy, with Max being the link between the two characters. Everyone else was peripheral to the plot.
That was a great post SmartAleq. I haven’t read ArchiveGuy’s or lissener’s posts and won’t. I don’t care what they didn’t like about the movie. I still love it, but I have to update what I said myself, since this thread was started way back in September.
Across the Universe got pushed aside a bit by, not The Darjeerling Express, but There Will Be Blood and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Across the Universe is in the #3 spot for the year now.
Watched this the other day; I’m going to cut and paste an email I wrote to a friend who didn’t want to go see it in the theater, but who watched it recently and liked it:
I didn’t dislike it as much as Archive Guy did (though that was a brilliant review); and I think why I didn’t dislike it that much was for the reasons Smart Aleq presents (in another brilliant review). The absence of the Beatles qua Beatles (so that was or wasn’t Paul in the pub in Liverpool at the very end?) made it a very different movie, and it’s kind of a cool premise.
PS: Muchas gracias to bbs2k for finding this thread – I knew there’d be some fascinating commentary already presented!