Cloud Atlas (2012)

          Essential plot rundown:  6 different stories are loosely connected.  Yea, thats about as simple as I can put it.  I've been wanting to see this for a long time, ever since I saw the trailer about 5 months ago.

         Cloud Atlas is more like 6 mini films all edited together.  There are 6 different stories that transverse time that all star the same actors in different racial and gender roles.  It's suppose to play on reincarnation, but I'm a simple minded person who likes simple things; I didn't catch the overall theme.

          But, I'm getting ahead of myself.  I really liked this movie; it's probably one of the better ones that I've seen from 2012.  It's interesting and engaging; I never got bored during the 3 hour runtime.  And it seems like the type of movie that will make more sense the more you watch it.

          Like I said, the 6 stories are loosely connected.  I had a hard time understanding all of the dialogue (I want to re-watch it with subtitles); therefore, I had a hard time following the details of each story.  But the basic concept of each was easily grasped.  So, I'm not exactly sure how each story connects with the others.

          I found each story (well, 5 out of 6 really) to be really interesting.  I was engaged with each plot, wanting to know what happened next.  I think that they could have easily taken any of those and made it into its own feature film. And if they did, I would go watch it.

          But, the biggest thing about this movie was the choice of casting the same actors in different racial/gender roles.  I understand the purpose, about how all things are connected or whatever; but I did find it really distracting.  After a while, I got a little use to it, but it was still kind of distracting.  And some makeup jobs were better than others.  This chinese actress was transformed into a caucasian:

And I thought they did a pretty decent job.  It took me a while to realize that it was makeup.  Though, the white character totally looks familiar.  Hugo Weaving is a very ugly nurse and Halle Berry makes for a strangely attractive jewish woman.

And make sure you stay for the credits, they show who was who.

          So, overall, I really enjoyed this film.  I was engaged throughout.  The acting was good.  The story was will written.  (Though, it is a weird movie).  And that's all I have to say.

     But that's just my opinion...