‘Across the Universe’ is silly but spellbinding

By ROGER MOORE

THE ORLANDO SENTINEL

It’s a film brimming with affection and over-reaching ambition. And if Julie Taymor’s visionary, wrongheaded “Across the Universe” fails, it at least fails on a grand scale. ‘Tis folly, to be sure — literal-minded, silly, cliche-riddled folly. But it is glorious folly with purpose.

That purpose? To sum up the ’60s with a deliriously original musical built on the Beatles songbook.

“Can’t be done,” you say, and you’re right. Summing up the ’60s in a single film has been a fool’s errand since “More American Graffiti,” “1969” and “Hair.”

But from the moment the sad, lonely and “dear” Prudence (T.V. Carpio), as a Dayton, Ohio, cheerleader, sings a mournful “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” through the collisions of a football practice, “Universe” casts a spell, one only occasionally broken by a moment too jaw-droppingly cutesy to believe.

I can see old people walking out on it. I can see kids giggling at its quaint conceits.

But pinch me and call me Ringo: I found it adorable.

Taymor (Broadway’s “The Lion King”) stages a merchant sailor’s good-bye to his best gal in Liverpool with “All My Loving.” Remember how that goes? Of course you do.

“Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, tomorrow I’ll miss you ...”

Taymor turns an Uncle Sam recruiting poster’s “I Want YOU” into an animated “I Want You (So Bad)” plunging a Princeton drop-out and reluctant draftee into the Army induction process, where GI Joe-masked drill instructors line-dance and stuff young men into ammo boxes for shipment to Vietnam.

“Let It Be” becomes a gospel funeral dirge for Vietnam (and race riot) victims.

There’s a “Sexy Sadie” (Dana Fuchs) who belts out “Helter Skelter” and several other show-stoppers, a Rita, a Max (Joe Anderson), a guitar-playing Jo Jo (Martin Luther McCoy), and a Mr. Kite (Eddie Izzard, vamping it up).

And the leads? They’re Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood, surprisingly good) and the pride of Liverpool, Jude (Jim Sturgess), so we know at least two more songs that’ll turn up, along with a rooftop concert and strawberries and an apple icon that predates a certain electronics company.

If you’re not a Beatles fan, you’re probably already lost. This probably isn’t a movie for you. But if you are ...

The Liverpudlian leaves home to seek the ex-American World War II GI who is his father. The rich boy, Max, rebels his way out of Princeton and into the draft. Lucy loses her first love to the Vietnam War, Jo Jo survives the Detroit riots and they all “come together” (Joe Cocker sings that one) in a dumpy New York apartment where “All You Need is Love.”

Prudence is a late arrival.

“Where’d she come from?”

“She came in through the bathroom window.”

Yeah, it’s just goofy that way. You’ll wince, but maybe you’ll grin as you do.

It’s too big a decade with too much turmoil to ever really fit it all in, complete with the conflict (the peace movement comes between Jude and Lucy, prompting Jude to sing “Revolution”) that drama requires.

But if you’re a fan of the Beatles and their music, of unconventional musicals (this isn’t “Hairspray”) or even of Bono (he has a couple of songs), this trippy trip “Across the Universe” is one you won’t mind taking.