Writing in "The New York Times", Vincent Canby called it "a rollicking musical memoir... Weller's inventions make this "Hair" seem much funnier than I remember the show's having been. They also provide time and space for the development of characters who, on the stage, had to express themselves almost entirely in song... The entire cast is superb... Mostly... the film is a delight." Frank Rich said: "If ever a project looked doomed, it was this one" (referring to the "largely plotless" and dated musical upon which it was based, Forman's and Tharp's lack of movie musical experience, the "largely unproven cast" and the film's "grand budget"); but that in spite of these obstacles, ""Hair" succeeds at all levels—as lowdown fun, as affecting drama, as exhilarating spectacle and as provocative social observation. It achieves its goals by rigorously obeying the rules of classic American musical comedy: dialogue, plot, song and dance blend seamlessly to create a juggernaut of excitement. Though every cut and camera angle in "Hair" appears to have been carefully conceived, the total effect is spontaneous. Like the best movie musicals of the '50s ("Singin' in the Rain") and the '60s ("A Hard Day's Night"), "Hair" leaps from one number to the next. Soon the audience is leaping too."