Across the Universe

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Across the Universe ★★ 2007 (PG-13)

Director Julie Taymor has certainly crafted a mystical tour, from middle America to bohemian Greenwich Village to Vietnam. Whether this portrayal of the Vietnam era, using gorgeous visuals, a stylized 60s aesthetic, a nice chunk of the Beatles songbook, and surprisingly little spoken dialogue, is also magical is debatable. Lucy Even (Wood) moves from a small town to New York City, where she and her brother Max (Anderson) meet and befriend a number of predictable characters including Jude (Sturgess), a Brit from—where else?—Liverpool. The music has been tasked with propelling the plot along via a vision of this revolutionary time from hippie idealism through the duty of military service to the anti-war counter culture, which is where the message of the film finally lands. See it for the stunning visuals and the fresh interpretation of Beatles classics. 133m/C DVD, Blu-ray Disc . US Evan Rachel Wood, Joe Anderson, Jim Sturgess, Dana Fuchs, Martin Luther McCoy, T.V. Carpio; Cameos: Bono; D: Julie Taymor; W: Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais; C: Bruno Delbonnel; M: Elliot Goldenthal.

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