Altogether Now! - Trippy, joyous rendering of The Beatles' songbook on the silver screen

Rating: 9/10 (18 September 2007)

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007) ***1/2 Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Martin Luther, T.V. Carpio, Spencer Liff, Angela Mounsey, Robert Clohessy, Linda Emond, Dylan Baker, Bill Irwin, Harry Lennix, James Urbaniak, Joe Cocker, Bono, Eddie Izzard, Salma Hayek. Trippy, joyous phantasmagorical magical adaptation of The Beatles' songbook brought to the silver screen by wunderkind director Julie Taymor set in the turbulent Vietnam Era '60s (natch) with a Liverpudlian boy named Jude (Sturgess) falling for a girl named Lucy (Wood) while trekking to NYC to find his father. In the process of the heady and at times heavy prospects of making the Fab Four's material even more accessible there are far more hits than misses and it's hard-pressing to be such a sour-puss when the overwhelming message of 'all you need is love' rings out in sweet harmony.