Cloud Atlas - Yes, Please

The Cloud Atlas trailer seemed very promising, but has the film adaptation of the novel by David Mitchell been able to deliver?

When watching this movie, there are a number of precautions you should take. 1. Turn off your phone. 2. Get rid of any possible distraction, including but not limited to the following: tasty food, friend or partner, land line, if you are one of the few who still have one, door bell. 3. Concentrate. 4. Concentrate more.

With six different story lines unraveling simultaneously in front of your eyes, you are already hard-pressed to follow the goings-on. Since this story however looks at six different people's souls throughout time this means additional confusion to cloud your mind. For one, every famous actor plays multiple roles throughout the movie and you spend half your time trying to recognize whether it is Hugh Grant, Tom Hanks, Matrix' Agent Smith aka Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess pretending to be Asian or Xun Zhou pretending to be European.

Cloud Atlas Movie Poster - Warner Bros. Pictures

If you think this sounds confusing, just wait until you try to find all the connections that further exists between the 6 different story lines, since each story includes allusions to the one that went before it chronologically (while still running simultaneously). It is all connected of course by the Cloud Atlas, that certain piece of music that you are trying to find throughout the chaos of characters and chronicles. Yes, I did feel the need for an atlas to uncloud my mind.

If you are able to watch this film in full concentration mode, it is a trek through time (not stars) providing you with amazing imagery spanning from the 1800s to the vision of a distant, post-apocalyptic future very similar the "Time Machine"  setting and storyline. My personal highlights were probably Hugh Grant as a scary tribe member/monster and Jim Broadbent reenacting his version of Prison Break. If you can manage to stay away from your phone for long enough, this movie is definitely worth 172 (!) minutes of your time.