Bound to polarize

Rating: 8/10 (2 March 2013)

Like Matrix before it, Cloud Atlas is bound to turn people into either lovers or into haters. After all, it is a movie with a great cast, fantastic special effects and a complex story; in fact so complex that at first, when the movie ends, you feel like there is a lot you have missed, that the movie should have made you understand something, but you couldn't. And, just like Matrix before it, it is just a feeling it creates, not the truth. As I see it, the truth is that the story was not complex at all, it just seemed like it, as was the moral of the story, which was not something Earth shattering, just a vision of humanity's interconnectivity.
The appearance of complexity comes from all the effort that was obviously put into the film. Would it make any sense to tell a simple story in a complicated way and invest to much money into it that it becomes one of the most expensive movies of all times? Yes, it certainly makes sense, because you don't go to the cinema unless the marketing convinces you it is something great and then it is simple enough so you don't feel an idiot for not comprehending it. The skill is in making you feel like you watched something intelligent and yet you understood it easily.
Bottom line: the film is a great realization compared to most other movies around now. A great cast and fantastic effects skillfully complement an intelligent story, told right. However, even if it is definitely worth watching, do not expect the film to be anything that it isn't. After all, its purpose is to make you buy the ticket, not teach you anything new and the moral of the story that our souls are inextricably connected isn't more profound than when you heard it any other place (and there are plenty of those to choose from). A pretty cool film, however, even if it leaves you with that "is that it?" feeling when it ends.