Tries to be so much, and almost succeeds

Rating: 8/10 (30 July 2014)

I came to this movie having never read the book, I decided to watch it due to its stellar cast and intriguing premise and for almost 3 hours I was thoroughly entertained.
The film attempts to fit 6 vastly different but intertwined stories spanning at least 500 years, past, present and future. The stories are each told through the perspective of a single character, and the narrative flits between them with only 3-10 minutes at a time being on one story. Surprisingly, although initially deliberately so, the stories are not at all confusing if you are paying attention, and there is something very special about the mix of genres and watching an actor play 6 different roles in the space of 15 minutes. Each of the main actors/actresses has a different yet similar role in several if not all of the stories, for instance Hugo Weaving plays the antagonist in several stories. In one he is in his classic role as effectively agent smith from the matrix, in another he puts on make-up/a mask to play a Korean interrogator/ archivist, and in another he is in drag and plays an overly strict nurse at a retirement home.
This brings me to my first qualm, the make-up.masks that the actors wear to play their different roles is not always perfect, and this gives the actors a strange look as if their eyes are sunk deep(er) inside their heads along with some other issues. Apart from this single issue the rest of the film looks terrific and the score is particularly strong.
The actors/actresses are all terrific, most notably Hanks and Whishaw, and the film kept me interested throughout despite its run time. My second, final and largest problem with the film is a direct result of its premise. The fact that each story on average gets less than half and hour of screen time leaves me less emotionally connected to the characters, and therefore the finale scenes and payoff were not the same as in a regular film. Thankfully I feel I was able to appreciate the film as something much larger. It may attempt to achieve too much, but to me at least, it achieves all it can 8/10