One of the more hit or miss films in recent memory

Rating: 6/10 (11 February 2008)

The incomparable Julie Taymor strikes again with her vastly ambitious musical set to alternate versions of Beatles songs. Certainly with it's share of misfires, some a little embarrassing, Across the Universe is still a wildly creative and sometimes stirring roller-coaster ride down the interpretative lens of some of the world's most successful pop song lyrics.
What Taymor sets out to accomplish in her film is nothing short of miraculous. By organizing her so-so plot about two lovers and a myriad of supporting characters around many of the groups most popular songs, and in fact synchronizing scene after scene so the lyrics often literally translate out on screen at that moment within the context of her story, she is obviously going to have some sequencing not fit in the most intuitive way, as the film's slow beginning hints.
When this restless director is firing on all cylinders however, Across the Universe becomes a marvel of beauty, an exquisite mixture of sight and sound no less powerful then when Pink Floyd's The Wall film debuted. Never mind the slight controversy of remaking these classic songs by different artists-although a few seem misinterpreted or just flat out butchered, I feel any true Beatle fan will feel like justice has been done to paint their visionary music along the skyline of consciousness.