3/5 Popcorns

If nothing else, “Cloud Atlas” is ambitious. The elaborately abstract story explodes on screen with bold vision. But like countless other adaptations churned out by Hollywood, it should’ve stayed on the page.

David Mitchell’s best-selling 2004 novel chronicles six parallel but interconnected sagas of courage, love and destiny across past, present and future. Not the simplest concept to adapt for film.

Co-directors Andy and Lana Wachowski (“The Matrix”) and Tom Tykwer (“Run Lola Run”) assumed responsibility for the near-impossible task of bringing the words to life. They don’t quite succeed, but they definitely get points for trying.

The sheer scope of this time-spanning epic is gargantuan. It jumps from 19th-century sailors to a 1973 San Francisco; from modern-day London to a 2144 dystopian cityscape called Neo Seoul; and from a 1930s Scotland to a primitive, post-apocalyptic jungle and back again. The actors play vastly different characters in each storyline, drawn fatefully together through ages and dimensions.

The Wachowskis and Tykwer tried doing justice to the novel in two ways: dazzling visuals and an incredibly stacked cast. They recruited Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Sturgess, Susan Sarandon, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving and more — all playing multiple seriously weird roles in heavy makeup and crazy costumes.

“Cloud Atlas” is imposing to behold and genuinely interesting, but there are too many characters, stories and threads to weave back together. Where the payoff should be deeply fulfilling, it slips into hokey and melodramatic territory.

The plot is not an easy one to explain, but basically, each storyline is connected to another through more stories. Characters reading diaries or letters, or dreaming of characters in other storylines who are played by the same actors with distorted makeup. Oh, and past actions ripple across centuries to affect the future. Still following? It’s tricky enough to make sense of in writing, let alone on the big screen.

Here’s the relatively short version: A brilliant and secretly gay, young musician (Ben Whishaw) works for an aging legendary composer (Broadbent) while writing a symphony of his own called the “Cloud Atlas Sextet.” A shady doctor (Hanks) slowly poisons a young lawyer (Sturgess) on his ocean voyage home. A journalist (Berry) uncovers a nuclear plot and tries to expose it while evading a corporate hit man (Weaving).

There’s also a genetically engineered clone named Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae), who falls in love with a revolutionary (Sturgess, again), becoming the symbol of a totalitarian revolution. Finally, a primitive tribesman named Zachry (Hanks, again) guides a futuristic scientist (Berry, again) to a sacred temple. Don’t forget about the book publisher (Broadbent, again) trying to escape from an old-folks home — that one’s honestly just pointless comic relief.

Of course, all the storylines are somehow connected, and characters experience intense deja vu, as their past and future actions affect the fate of the world and whatnot.

Convoluted storytelling aside, the distinctive settings make for breathtaking visual entertainment. There are dizzying chases and shootouts set against the shimmering neon blur of Neo Seoul, and surreal, slow-motion sequences, like Berry’s car plummeting into San Francisco Bay. Not to mention the rugged beauty of an archaic future world, juxtaposed with the fierce brutality of savage horsemen slathered in war paint.

Forgiving the wide array of fake noses and unrecognizable makeup disguises, the acting in “Cloud Atlas” is superb. The younger cast members — Whishaw, Bae and Sturgess — give particularly captivating performances. Broadbent is a true thespian, charming and witty in all his incarnations. Weaving is also memorable, especially in his role as Old Georgie, a demonic bowler-hatted figment of Zachry’s imagination.

Then there’s Tom Hanks. One thing is clear: He had an absolute blast making this movie.

He plays a bunch of absurd characters, each more ridiculous than the last. In one storyline, he plays a homicidal Brit with a comically hackneyed accent, sporting a bad spray tan and a goatee. In another, he’s a quirky, scheming doctor with buckteeth and a bulbous nose. Yet his goofiest role is Zachry — a dirty, tattooed villager speaking in a post-apocalyptic dialect that can only be described as Deep South backwoods Ebonics.

“Cloud Atlas” is mind-bending, touching, exciting, silly and downright confusing all at once. But despite a runtime of almost three hours, there’s just no way to meld this cavalcade of divergent stories into a cohesive and satisfying narrative.

Tykwer and the Wachowskis gave it their best shot, but in the end, all they concocted was a beautiful mess.

Published on November 1, 2012 at 1:12 am

Contact Rob: rjmarvin@syr.edu