I will need to watch it again

Rating: 9/10 (29 December 2012)

Just watched it last night, and I have the impression I will need to watch it again to fully appreciate it. My first reaction was that this was an over ambitious project, and we should give kudos to producers/directors who decided to go for a movie with a $100M budget that does not really fit the typical model to guarantee their box office return.
It is not a movie for all kind of audiences as it is not easy to follow (although I think the editing helped us a lot) and the fact that different accents and dialects are spoken make your job a bit harder.
Having said that, it is a terrific idea, fairly well executed, with good performances by all actors (except Hugh Grant who just played...Hugh Grant as always). The only negative comment I have is that in a 3hr movie you should not leave with the impression that characters were not developed well enough. And I definitely felt that way in some of the stories (for example the first story we spend too much time watching the doctor trying to poison Burgess, while that time could have been employed better to develop the slave character). As a result of this underdevelopment, the film does not achieve the emotional level it aims for.
But clear correlations (and other not so clear which is good) among the stories exist to make the overall arch work effectively. References to older sci-fi movies are there, as a way to honor them. I thought this was also great. FInally, it is a sci-fi movie, yes, but which puts humanistic views in the first place. And make us think about souls, karma, God, cause- consequence. In one of the first scenes of the movie, it is said something like: "If this was all created by God, what are the things we can and can not change? ". We are still trying to answer that question.