Cloud Atlas

Reviews & features

Cloud Atlas

18 Feb 2013

Breathtaking action, profound emotion, dark sense of fun and sheer deranged brilliance

A time-trotting, globe-encircling, multi-strand plot; wigs, false noses and flamboyant accents; grandiose theories about the fate-shifting power of romantic love... Cloud Atlas has an unavoidable hint of the Mad Folly about it. One recalls Thomas…

1. Perthshire FilmFanatic – 25 Feb 2013, 1:19am Cloud Atlas Report

A sextet of tales across the ages, exploring how one person’s actions can have an effect on the future, the past and the present. Basically, fans of the book will be pleased, but those unfamiliar with this novel (myself included) will be baffled by the six stories that are all lugged together here, flitting between the South Pacific of the nineteenth century, 1930’s Britain, ‘70’s San Francisco, the present day, a dystopian near future and an apocalyptic nightmare. The main problem for me here is with all the leads embodying different characters in each era, aided by some at times rather suspect make-up and dodgy looking noses and wigs that wouldn't look out of place at a Primary School Panto, it’s never quite clear how all these ties bind these stories together, and about an hour you just, eventually, find yourself sitting lost and in the middle of a dull and frustrating puzzle. Ultimately, in trying to say too much, it ends up not really saying anything at all, and for a story like this that is a significant failing.

This one's for fans of the book only. If not, it's instantly forgettable.