Extremely ambitious, rarely successful

Rating: 6/10 (26 August 2015)

"Cloud Atlas" is a 2012 film that runs for almost 3 hours and was made by the Wachowski brothers ("Matrix") together with German director Tom Tykwer ("Lola rennt"). Oscar winners Tom Hanks and Halle Berry are the lead actors and many other famous names are in the cast, such as 2 more Oscar winners, namely Jim Broadbent and Susan Sarandon plus Hugo Weaving ("Matrix), Jim Sturgess and Hugh Grant. Also this film introduced Doona Bae and she is playing several major characters. This is also the core of the film. All the actors do not only play one character, but several and they live in completely different eras: the past the present and the future.
I am not familiar with the book that this is based on, but I must say that it was a decent watch most of the time. The stories are solid and make sense as much as this is possible in a film with so many futuristic and prehistoric references. Jim Broadbent is fun to watch as always and he elevates the plot about the senior citizen's home a lot. However, this film has one great weakness: There is almost exclusively black and white in this film. Characters are either completely evil or over-the-top good people There are absolutely no shades in here plus many of the actors only play characters which are on one side of the scale. Berry only plays good, Weaving only plays bad. Maybe this is also why this film did not manage to get in at the Oscars at all despite being considered one of the big competitors that year. Still, all in all, even if it does not even come close to fulfilling the ambition it had, it's still a solid watch and rarely drags, which is definitely a decent achievement for a film with such a runtime. Recommended all in all, especially if you like Hanks and the other actors, but nothing outstanding really.