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Well kids, it's rare that Dr. Tom thinks so little of a movie that he only lasts 15 minutes before looking at the theater manager in a threatening way while asking for his money back, but in cases like "Across the Universe," it can occasionally happen.
 
The first shot of this movie honestly made me go, "Hey, you know what? I'm gonna forget the merciless bashing other critics have given this movie and give it a chance." They even had me for a few minutes more. I knew it was a musical set to Beatles songs, and I knew the director (Julie Taymour, most recently of "Titus") had talent, and I also knew that I would willingly have sex with Evan Rachel Wood (if she were of my acquaintance and interested and I had never been told she's spread her legs for Marilyn Manson), so I was all clean-slated for this experience.

Then, about 9 minutes in, a random Asian cheerleader girl who we've never seen before (and who has some damn thing on her lip that looks a lot like a herpes sore and really makes you think more of why makeup department didn't cover the damn thing up even more than 'Who the hell is this chick?') starts singing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" in a sensitivo solo that is either addressed to a football player or the blonde cheerleader chick that he's macking on. Either way, it's all quite uncomfortable, and then she starts walking in slow motion through the football players as they ram into one another (also in slow mo), still singing.

A few minutes later, a group of frat boys starts singing "With a Little Help From My Friends" while smoking a roach that is clearly pantomimed, again to a point of unexplained what-the-phuckness that we're left more thinking of why the hell they didn't just supply them with a fake roach or joint or whatever even more than why the hell they're singing.

This ain't a musical that flows, this is a bunch of drama twerps from your high school who found 50 million and said "Hey, hey! Let's make a movie and sing to the Beatles and make it about the 60's! The 60's were so cool!" Don't see this thing unless you're stoned. And if you are the type of person who would get stoned and see this thing, don't ever talk to me, and please don't have children.
 
(one bong, the one Julie Taymour used, that's all)

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