Julie Taymor’s Beatles pastiche gets a qualified rave from Justin Chang in Variety:

All you need is love — for the Beatles, for psychedelic visuals, for ideas about being young in the ‘60s — to fully enjoy “Across the Universe.” Julie Taymor has delivered an audacious, idiosyncratic creation that plays like a riff on “Hair” with Fab Four cachet, stretching a thin love story across one tumultuous decade. It’s all played with such conviction, that it’s hard to dislike but hard to take seriously. Pic’s commercial prospects look more in line with those of “Rent” than of “Chicago,” though the Taymor touch achieves enough sporadic moments of invention and punch-drunk romanticism to steal the hearts of baby boomers and young female auds in particular.