The WORST MOVIE of the 21st Century...

Rating: 1/10 (31 December 2013)

This is the worst movie of the 21st Century by directors who know better. Or should know better.
We all know that great directors will have failures -- they all do, from Scorsese to Coppola to Nolan. (No doubt some of you will disagree, but Nolan's "Inception" was fatally flawed.) And here we have the Wachowskis, who have literally made one of the greatest movies of all time ("The Matrix"), wrote an absolutely brilliant film directed by another ("V for Vendetta"), and many other accomplishments. But with "Cloud Atlas," they have made one of the worst movies ever made.
Now, non-linear storytelling is fine, if it works. Nicholas Roeg infamously used this technique successfully in a number of his films back in the '70s & '80s. If you're too young to have ever seen any of his films, then you think Quentin Tarantino is the "father" of non-linear storytelling. He's not. But Tarantino uses it quite astutely with his films, and probably no one today uses it better than him. But the Wachowskis? What DRUGS were they on when they wrote this script and/or edited this film? This is the worst use of non-linear storytelling I have EVER seen in my life. Abject failure.
The whole film is a failure, for way too many reasons to list here. I can only assume that those rating it highly, or calling it a "masterpiece" are either on the same drugs as the Wachowskis, or, they were won over by the cinematography, the special effects and the music. But these elements do not by themselves make a good or great film.
The overall problems:
SCRIPT/STORY: A mess. Not coherent, full of unmotivated actions by the characters, with plot points that don't make ANY sense, etc.
CAST: The entire cast of this film is bad. Mediocre acting from pretty much everyone, even Hanks. (Although to be fair, I think it's more the bad writing/dialogue's fault than Hanks. And the fault of the directors.)
DIRECTING: Horrible. F'ing horrible.
CINEMATOGRAPHY (and Production Design): Very nice. But I don't want to spend 3 hours watching something "nice." That's not what movies are about. If I want to look at nice images, I'll go to the f**king art museum.
So you've been warned. Watch at your own risk. As to the "point" of this story, about past/present/future lives, and how we may re-incarnate and reconnect with people we've known in other lives... I just couldn't imagine a worse execution of this premise than this film. There probably never will be a worse film done around this premise.