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Across the Universe
Metascore
56 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 29 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 29
  3. Negative: 4 out of 29
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  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    100
    Here is a bold, beautiful, visually enchanting musical where we walk INTO the theater humming the songs.
  2. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Rick Groen
    88
    This much is inarguable: In the more than two flamboyant hours of Across the Universe, Julie Taymor doesn't cheat us for a single second.
  3. Seattle Post-Intelligencer
    Reviewed by: William Arnold
    83
    The film is a strange, nostalgic, suitably outrageous ode to a very real revolution in consciousness.
  4. Empire
    Reviewed by: Ian Nathan
    80
    A load of kids singing Beatles tunes? You better believe it.
  5. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    80
    Somewhere around its midpoint, Across the Universe captured my heart, and I realized that falling in love with a movie is like falling in love with another person. Imperfections, however glaring, become endearing quirks once you've tumbled.
  6. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Jessica Reaves
    75
    If you're a Beatles fan who's not offended by people taking serious liberties with the arrangements of your favorite songs, the unrepentantly exuberant and seriously tuneful Across the Universe is pretty much a sure thing.
  7. Miami Herald
    Reviewed by: Rene Rodriguez
    75
    Across the Universe can't achieve the transcendence and exhilaration musicals strive for, but it often generates a singular kind of magic you've never experienced before.
  8. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Peter Hartlaub
    75
    While the songs are recycled, Across the Universe stands out just by existing.
  9. Portland Oregonian
    Reviewed by: Shawn Levy
    75
    It's a funny thing: On the one hand, you fault Taymor for going out of her way to create some of the more disposable sequences. On the other, you can forgive her: Who wouldn't get carried away given the opportunity she has been given here to play with one of the world's greatest song catalogs?
  10. Variety
    Reviewed by: Justin Chang
    70
    All you need is love -- for the Beatles, for psychedelic visuals, for ideas about being young in the '60s -- to fully enjoy Across the Universe.
  11. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Tasha Robinson
    67
    It's all very clever and thought-through, but all the allusions don't much bolster the bland central romance or the paper-thin treatment of '60s social issues.
  12. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: Peter Rainer
    67
    Taymor's flower-powery phantasmagoria is ambitious but ultimately tiresome.
  13. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    63
    To call it trippy would be an understatement. Your head might explode. Just don't accuse Taymor of playing it safe.
  14. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Jack Mathews
    63
    Julie Taymor says the idea for her Across the Universe was "to create an original musical using only the songs of the Beatles." That's like saying you're going to create a new element using only gold.
  15. New York Post
    Reviewed by: Kyle Smith
    63
    An interesting failure, not a fascinating one.
  16. Philadelphia Inquirer
    Reviewed by: Steven Rea
    63
    A bizarre counterculture jukebox musical.
  17. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Maitland McDonagh
    63
    And yes, that is Salma Hayek in the chorus line of sexily sinister nurses, perhaps repaying Taymor for lending her dramatic credibility with "Frida."
  18. USA Today
    Reviewed by: Claudia Puig
    63
    While style trumps substance, something in the way this '60s tribute moves attracts us.
  19. Baltimore Sun
    Reviewed by: Michael Sragow
    58
    Disarming, discombobulating and disappointing.
  20. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Stephen Farber
    50
    Julie Taymor's visual gifts are very much in evidence in Across the Universe, an ambitious, only partly successful attempt to reinvigorate the musical genre.
  21. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    50
    Elements of Across the Universe are shockingly awful and the film lasts at least 30 minutes past the bearable stage. But if you like the Beatles and the idea of hearing about 20 covers of their work fills you with a perverse joy, this may be the movie for you.
  22. Film Threat
    Reviewed by: Mark Bell
    50
    The film does not know what it is, tonally changing within and between structural acts.
  23. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ella Taylor
    50
    Across the Universe, which filters the cultural revolt through a blizzard of early Beatles songs, ends up both reductive and smugly condescending to a presumptively know-nothing audience.
  24. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    42
    Goofy, pompous, annoyingly boomer-myopic Fab Four musical.
  25. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Ann Hornaday
    40
    A yawn and most unforgivably features some appalling arrangements of the Beatles' best-loved songs.
  26. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Ty Burr
    38
    Hobbled by its vaguely insulting comic-book version of the '60s and by a humorlessness that can only come from talented people convinced they're creating work for the ages.
  27. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: J.R. Jones
    30
    If a bullet hadn't killed John Lennon, this Beatles-scored musical might have.
  28. Premiere
    Reviewed by: Glenn Kenny
    25
    Director Julie Taymor's gargantuan all-Beatles-songs musical is that rarest of animals, the perfect disaster that fulfills expectations by defying them.
  29. Austin Chronicle
    Reviewed by: Marjorie Baumgarten
    20
    Across the Universe will have ardent defenders, but in the long run, it will do nothing to infuse life into the current mini-revival of movie musicals and is as soft-headed as the wishful refrain "All You Need Is Love." Maybe that works in real life but not in the movies, sister.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 203 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 89 out of 128
  2. Mixed: 8 out of 128
  3. Negative: 31 out of 128
  1. GregP.
    3
    What the movie suffered from most was neither the weak treatment of 60's culture nor the poor tribute to the Beatles. What it suffered most from was the nagging sensation that almost every named character and almost every scene was a mere contrivance to "force" a scene out of a particular set of lyrics. For those who have seen the movie, the absolutely pasted-on "Dear Prudence" (not to mention the namesake character herself) scene is made bearable only by comparison to the absolute nonsense that was "Strawberry Fields Forever." The events leading up to and surrounding such scenes are such a cobbled-together mess of an excuse that the movie becomes absolutely painful.… Full Review »
  2. RobinB.
    1
    Warning to anyone with sentiment for the Beatles music: this movie metaphorically defecates on the Lennon memorial. I felt like an Orthodox Catholic watching Jesus Christ Superstar. What'll Taymor do next? Heart Shaped Box: the musical of Kurt Cobain.… Full Review »
  3. MattP.
    1
    Aside from the fact that this movie isn't totally broken, it's totally insulting. I love the Beatles, but Taymor makes them her **** and uses songs that were once important as nothing more than mouthpeices for her characters. Terrible, heart ripping movie that will kill any real Beatles fan that understands that their music is for the fans, not for a hack filmmaker.… Full Review »
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