It looked like a good idea to pen a musical drama about the Sixties using 33 of the Beatles songs. But Julie Taymor, who made Frida and produced the Broadway version of The Lion King, fits such a slim and bland story to her film that the songs are somehow diminished.
Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais wrote the screenplay around the songs rather than the other way around. But this love story set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, anti-war protest and rock'n'roll simply can't work it out.
The lovers are Jude (Jim Sturgess) and Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) - the cue for at least two songs - who are torn apart by the war and have to find their way back to each other. Bono's Dr Robert and Eddie Izzard's Mr Kite are their guides, with Joe Cocker belting out several songs in a trio of cameo roles.
Across the Universe tries for something harder than mere nostalgia but the musical numbers are rarely more than adequate and the film's summation of the period, in both Liverpool and Greenwich Village, only just passes muster. You feel, after two hours and a bit, that the Beatles deserve better and the Sixties a more defiant touch.
Across The Universe
Cert: 12A
