Grade:        B

Moral:        “She’s so heavy...”

As boundlessly effervescent as her adaptation of Titus was boundlessly depraved, Across the Universe reproves that Julie Taymor may be the current queen of emotion-via-visualization, and moreover she may finally be America’s answer to Ken Russell, albeit a few decades too late. Granted, she doesn’t seem out to flatten one with her imagery like Russell does at his zonkiest, but who else compares in terms of psychotropic insanity so joyously and effortlessly splayed across the screen?

Also like Titus, Taymor’s direction is hands-down the best thing going for Across the Universe; otherwise it’s kind of trite, kind of derivate (didja know that the 60s were, like, turbulent?), and man... it mangles some of those Beatles tunes. But its the energy with which it’s all delivered, and the sometimes acerbic / sometimes serendipitous manner of said energy, that sells this staid, 60’s retro-trip all over again. Also impressive is its admittedly clever utilization of the Beatles’ catalog as a kind of epic rock-opera account of the time-period, and the movie attains brilliance when the two are pointedly intermeshed: the literalization of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” with US soldiers hauling the Statue of Liberty across Indochina is the film at its surreal best.

It’s not quite fearless enough to be this generation’s Tommy, but it’s at least more impactful than The Wall, which is no small feat. Perhaps Across the Universe’s most winning trait is its descent into appropos tragedy (nowadays the political allegory hangs high and mordant over anything relating to the Vietnam War, and the film is unafraid to acknowledge it without whipping it to death), though it does take a few steps backward with its shrugged climax: ‘sure, this shit is happening all over again after a mere 30 years, but hey, all you need is love, right?’ Still, it’s a rollicking, whacko musical that capably fills the vacuum in that genre, and it’s even esoteric enough to (hilariously) acknowledge the pissy duel between Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary. So take a blotter and lie down in the front of the theater, man: it’s a good ride.