Cloud Atlas is a sprawling, ambitious drama with a strong cast, intriguing science-fiction elements, solid production values and impressive visuals.  But it’s also a big mess without a unifying theme.  Six stories set in time periods varying from 1850 to the far future feature the same major actors (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Donna Bae, Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent, Ben Whishaw, Jim Sturgess, Keith David, James D’Arcy, Susan Sarandon) in very disparate roles. This, I think, really works against the film’s effectiveness, as it is quite distracting to see Tom and Halle, et al, made up in all sorts of different guises with different accents, trying in some cases to become unrecognizable.  This character gallery-approach overwhelms the narrative.

But I didn’t care for the narrative, either.  Not having read the original David Mitchell novel, I have no idea how it compares to the film version.  But after 172 minutes of sturm und drang, I left the theater with no real sense of how it all fit together.  Some stories are uplifting while others are not.  Each story seems to affect the others, sometimes in subtle ways, but I never felt a unifying theme that made all the hustle and bustle worthwhile.  It was all very frustrating.

Cloud Atlas is an ambitious project that would almost certainly benefit from repeat viewings.  There is much to see and consider, and it is possible that I simply missed the forest of the big picture because there were so many individual trees that caught my attention.  It is a film like Synodoche, New York, or Adaptation or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; dense, complex, multi-layered, time-shifting dramas that take an elliptical approach to cinematic storytelling.  When done well, this type of project can be both enlightening and entertaining.  The other side of the coin is that such projects can also be muddled, irritating, overblown and frustrating.

I appreciate what writer-directors Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski and Andy Wachowski were attempting; I wish more Hollywood films were as ambitious, epic or experimental.  Yet without an obvious thematic structure (if it was there, I missed it) all the action seemed superficial and unimportant.  Perhaps a second viewing would make it all fit together, but I have no desire to revisit these characters or situations. I cannot recommend this movie.  ☆ ☆.  20 November 2012.