Recipe for potential disaster--take Beatles songs, add new performances by actors/musicians, name characters after characters from various Beatles tunes, add cheese, stir well and bake for two hours and you'll have "Across the Universe. Of course, it could just as easily been "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" but at least visually there's an undeniable talent and artistry to "Across the Universe" June Taymor's film. Make no mistake, this isn't a great film but it looks absolutely brilliant. The main flaw is taking the Lennon-McCartney songbook (and the occasional Harrison ditty as well) and hang a thin sliced story on it--it's all bread and little meat but it sure looks nice. ***

Personally, I think the Beatles did the best films with Beatles music. So since we don't have the band to do this for us, for some people, "Across the Universe" will be the next best thing. It keeps the band's music alive and the arrangements and performances are appealing. ***

Jude (you were expecting Mean Mr. Mustard perhaps?) leaves England to search for his father meeting Max a free spirit while on the road. Jude (Jim Sturgess) and Max (Jon Anderson…no not THAT Jon Anderson a different one) quickly hit it off and find an apartment to share with a rock singer named Sadie (Dana Fuchs), Prudence (T.V. Carpio) and Jojo (Martin Luther McCoy) a musician. All heck breaks loose (or, perhaps, I should say people break out in song) when Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) Max's younger sister arrives and falls in love with Jude. Set against the turbulent 60's as part of its background "Across the Universe" uses the Beatles songs to look at the landscape of 60's America. ---

Image & Sound:

"Across the Universe" looks bright, colorful and is visually stunning with a top notch transfer that's devoid of most of the digital artifacts that parade through the average Blu-ray transfer. It also looks extremely good in DVD (but truly Blu-ray is the way to go with this film). ***

Both the DVD and Blu-ray sound extremely good the latter featuring a 24 bit Dolby TrueHD sound mix that positively leaps out of the speakers. The surround format is used extensively and extremely well. ---

"Creating the Universe" focuses on the look of the film and stylish presentation. While Taymor does a commendable job of integrating the songs into the film, I wouldn't agree with her that she manages to integrate them amazingly well into the film. Some of the sequences are heavy handed to say the least. ***

"All About the Music" focuses on the new performances of the Beatles tunes. Fidelity wasn't the most important aspect of the film but, instead, trying to create music that fit in well with the dramatic moments of the story and with arrangements that complemented the performers as well. ***

"Stars of Tomorrow" runs about a half hour and focuses on the performers appearing in the film. ***

Additionally, we get a solid commentary track featuring Julie Taymor and composer Elliot Goldenthal who chimes in on the new arrangements he concocted for the film. In many respects Goldenthal does a much better job than George Martin did for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" simply because the allegiance to the Fab Four isn't there--Martin who produced the soundtrack for THAT film produced all the Beatles recordings from inception to their swan song album "Abbey Road" (technically speaking "Abbey Road" was the band's LAST album as "Let It Be" was recorded BEFORE "Abbey Road" but sat in the can because the band was extremely unhappy with their performances and each other). ---

Final Words: