There is a new sheriff in town. As of now, Battlefield Earth is but a deputy alongside Gigli and Little Nicky. The new worst film in the history of the world is Across the Universe. Call me a sensationalist; I don’t care, this movie sucks – A Tour De Manure.

Like any self-respecting music fan, I creamed in my pants when I heard about the release of a new coming-of-age story in the late 60s set entirely to the music of the Beatles. I mean, what could go wrong. This sounds like a recipe for a masterpiece. Let’s fire up the bong and head to the theater right? WRONG.

In all my haste and excitement, I overlooked one very important detail. The movie is not set to the music of the Beatles, but rather the movie is entirely comprised of the actors and actresses performing the music of the Beatles. In other words, it’s a musical. Read on for more of Rupert’s rant about Across The Universe…

Now don’t get me wrong, Across the Universe is filled with some talented actors and performers and some of the songs (ok, a couple) sounded pretty good, but you really have to love musical theater to tolerate this piece of self-indulgent crap. I kid you not, I sat beside a guy seemingly pretty compatible in my tastes and he burst out laughing in embarrassment at least as many times as I did. There was definitely an unspoken understanding between us of, “Where are we, how the hell did we get here, and most importantly, how do we get out?”

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The placement of the songs was entirely contrived and forced. Only Broadway directors and actors would think this works on the screen: introspective singing alone by the beach with cliché crashing waves, underwater artsy mermaid performances, and my personal favorite, the girl (Prudence) who is feeling sad and locks herself in the closet only to be serenaded back to happiness by a group of friends singing, “Dear Prudence, won’t you came out and play?’

Re-swallow the puke.

And how many endings does a movie really need? This movie literally had an ending (with a full solo performance of a song of course) for every single cliché ’60s plotline. I actually finally walked out and never saw the real ending, but it was mainly due to the fact that I had to pee so bad from waiting so long for the stupid thing to end.

The interesting thing about Across the Universe is that I hated this movie so much; I kinda want to see again. But I want to rent it and buy a lot of beer. It’s the kind of movie that sucks so bad that you should get a bunch of friends together and get drunk and throw empty cans at the TV set. To see it in the theater evokes too much anger for anybody to cope with in public, but in the privacy of your own home, this might just be fun. I will say it did have some sweet psychedelic scenes, but not nearly good enough to pull it from the gutter. Regardless, anyway you cut it, this is the worst movie ever made.

If anyone else saw Across the Universe, I’m dying to know your opinion. Although, I expect you’re probably all smart enough to know better.

Ryan Dembinsky

Ryan Dembinsky is a contributing editor for Hidden Track, where he focuses primarily on longer-form content and interviews. Ryan has contributed to a wide variety of music and sports publications such as Sports Illustrated, AOL Fantasy Football, Jambase, and Relix to name a few.

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