Cloud Atlas - Simply a distressingly underwhelming misnomer...

Rating: 1/10 (5 April 2013)

Cloud Atlas. The name itself brings to mind soft images of fluffy clouds, bright pure skies, and light and jovial spirits. This film, on the other hand, paints a rather different picture, as the entirety is a mixture of torture, death, and gore almost reminiscent of a Terantino bloodbath, but without the benefit of Terantino's touch.
I was rather hopeful for this movie, as both the name and blurb seemed to advertise the movie in a particularly favourable light. Unfortunately, I was rather expecting disappointment when I arrived to find a cinema entirely empty other than myself and a friend of mine who'd agreed to join. I was also validated in my disapproval of the film by 11 other people, (aged from 14 to 54) and am thus severely underwhelmed.
Aside from the fact that one is completely unprepared for almost 3 whole hours of non-stop death and destruction that is not entirely unlike a botched version of a Shakespearean story, (in the sense that just when you thought the situation could not get worse... It does. Aside from this fact, the film itself is an attempt at a genre of movie that leaves one pondering and postulating, wondering about the nature of our society and future... But it misses the mark, and for several reasons: Firstly, the audience is somewhat steam-roller-ed by the blaring lights and disjointed scene changes in which the movie decides to flit back and forth across supposed centuries without so much as a by-your-leave, rendering viewers confused and dismayed. Secondly, the appearance of either the shooting star or reappearance of various characters led to partial confusion as to who fought for what and how each characters connects with 'him/herself' in the past, present, or future. Finally, the plots never really intertwined as much as you would expect them to, given that the blurb suggests they influence their own lives through reincarnation.
As a secondary critique, the plot of the present era - 2012 - was never truly resolved. While they managed to kill the hired assassin who had been sent after them, they had still not stopped the corporations that were apparently about to cause nuclear fallout. If this is to link to the future era, then the fallout must have been almost worldwide, rather than simply in New York. Which leads to my final point: Each era took place in different places - on the Atlantic, in New York, Asia, Hawaii - and the link that they did hold between each-other was so tenuous that it was almost not worth mentioning.
In summation, while there was good motive behind creating the film, the mixture of gore, bad direction and shoddy editing cheapened the originally flawed plot-line, making this movie "bizarre and not-worth watching" if I were to quote only one of the plethora of people who advised me to steer clear of this catastrophe of film.