X
- 2012
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 2 h 52 m
- 2012
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 2 h 52 m
Summary Based on the best-selling novel by David Mitchell, “Cloud Atlas” explores how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another throughout the past, the present and the future. Drama, mystery, action and enduring love thread through a story that unfolds in multiple lifetimes as one soul is shaped from a killer into a he...
Directed By: Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
- 2012
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 2 h 52 m
- 2012
- R
- Warner Bros.
- 2 h 52 m
Cloud Atlas
55
8.2
Where to Watch
Summary Based on the best-selling novel by David Mitchell, “Cloud Atlas” explores how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another throughout the past, the present and the future. Drama, mystery, action and enduring love thread through a story that unfolds in multiple lifetimes as one soul is shaped from a killer into a he...
Directed By: Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 45 Critic Reviews
55
47% Positive
21 Reviews
21 Reviews
44% Mixed
20 Reviews
20 Reviews
9% Negative
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 45 Critic Reviews
55
47% Positive
21 Reviews
21 Reviews
44% Mixed
20 Reviews
20 Reviews
9% Negative
4 Reviews
4 Reviews
Its too-muchness is also the source of its power; I was absolutely never bored, and felt surprised when the movie ended. It's an amazing, baffling, thrilling and (for many, it would appear) irritating experience, and for my money the most beautiful and distinctive big-screen vision of the year.
As is often the peril with movies of giant ambition, Cloud Atlas walks a crooked line between the glorious and the ridiculous.
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 1,120 User Ratings
8.2
81% Positive
912 Ratings
912 Ratings
11% Mixed
118 Ratings
118 Ratings
8% Negative
90 Ratings
90 Ratings
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 1,120 User Ratings
8.2
81% Positive
912 Ratings
912 Ratings
11% Mixed
118 Ratings
118 Ratings
8% Negative
90 Ratings
90 Ratings
One of the most criminally underrated movies to date and the best work of the Wachowski's hands down.
The ambition and scale of Cloud Atlas is one of a kind with 6 different stories over a timeframe of many centuries. Each story is great on its own with a unqiue tone and style but it goes further. All of these stories are connected to form one big story and message to the viewer.
I can only assume that a lot of the more middling or negative reviews come from the initially confusing plot of the movie and the fact that actors play several roles at once with the help of makeup and prosthetics. It can certainly be hard to wrap your head around at first but there is a method to the madness.
Even if it may require a second viewing you start to understand how the different stories feed into each other and ultimately all tell the same story of oppression throughout history and how the actors play iterations of the same character throughout all of these 6 storylines.
It's a shame how overlooked this movie was back in the day because it's truly one of a kind with a unique style, great ambition and a great message.
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Honestly a fantastic work of art. They shot for a new experience and really hit the nail on the head. I waited until 2019 before I saw this and I was both upset and excited I did so. Dom tlet these other reviews put you off.. They are probably just too ignorant to follow the story. They are looking for something familiar something easy to watch that they can mind half pay attention to and then go write a review. That being said this movie might come off as confusing if you are looking for massive interwoven connections from time period to time period. We'll there really isn't any other than it's kind of like a genetic line passes down which leads to things in the future happening because of and in some cases the same way they did before. That's it really. The stories are similar and the similarities are shown to you when it's relevant. People say the stories didn't come together at the end and they are simply 100% wrong. They stories are absolutely connected in both theme and causality. Just because they were too bored to watch with attention to detail they shouldn't have even reviewed it. So just go into this with an open mind and don't expect some big twist that's going to blow your mind.. This is a story that is about the journey and the journey is beautiful. It's an absolute masterpiece.
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While Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski haven't necessarily expanded on Mitchell's book, they've done a superlative job making it legible onscreen. Cloud Atlas deserves praise if only for not being the baggy, pretentious disaster it could have been in other hands.
One has to ask: does it allow for immersion? Even as we applaud the dramatic machinery, are we being kept emotionally at bay? [29 Oct. & 5 Nov. 2012, p.128]
A tale that ought to dispel the clouds of mystery surrounding life gathers them into impenetrable fog.
Each segment feels more like an extended trailer for itself than a sound narrative unit. Maybe this incompletion is purposeful, but it's a problem when what's invariably elided or taken for granted is the very human connection and commiseration that is supposedly the most vital force in the universe.
A manifesto in the form of an enormously budgeted quasi-sci-fi epic, Cloud Atlas is evidently personal, defiantly sincere, totally lacking in self-awareness, and borderline offensive in its gleeful endorsement of revenge violence against anyone who gets in the way of a good person's self-actualization. The rest of the time, it's just insipid, TV-esque in its limited visual imagination, and dramatically incoherent.
Cloud Atlas is a true missundestood masterpiece. It touches on the deepest subjects such as love, rebellion, life, death, indecision and so much more. Each part of it is brilliantly crafted and put all together in one true flawless masterpiece. The level of mediocrity humanity has reached is unbelievable. Even bumblebee.....bumblebee has a better metacritic than this dramatic and sad yet funny masterpiece. There was one line in birdman that said all the critics do is say big words instead of analyzing the structure and everything important in that movie. The only thing they do is tear appart and trash on original movies just because they can't do a movie. They never think how much effort went into a good and original script, the production design, the special effects, cinematography, editing, etc. They just do what they know best (being selfish **** **** who are not able to percieve nor understand true art) and giving good grades to the newest unoriginal hollywood movies like bumblebee. The critics don't want profound messages about life death, etc. What the #### is that U don't know. They just want explosions, action, shooting, etc, etc, etc! So as a message to everybody: #### the critics. Every lazy incompetent can be a critic, He/She calls a site and asks for a job and then gets payed by that site to trash on every new artistic film and give 9/10 ratings to every new Marvel Audio Visual Product (because obviously marvel movies are not really movies. Movies have a message and artistic values)
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part 1: watched the movie, haven't read the book, Jan 2019
they drove their point home about how our lives are connected and death is a doorway so good job there. and I for one couldn't pause the movie so it was not overwhelmingly dull in the action department. the more philosophical endeavors, long term takeaways, and memorability of this movie are drowned out by the nature of its structure. oh well, it rarely happens the other way around.
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[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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The film is based on the idea that separate events in different historical periods can be causally connected. Adaptive transactions within evolution may be similar at different times, but causality between them has not been scientifically proven. For the viewer who does not believe in magical reality, the film is only a depiction of some stories - nothing more.
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The movie looks great, that's the end of anything nice I have to say for it. I'm not sure why someone decided to make a movie that was four or five other movies cut together, but it seems like a failed experiment. Fortunately none of the stories was particularly deep or original, so the jumping around wasn't enough to make it confusing once you got a handle on which story was which.
The story never really comes together with each story existing more or less independent of the others. I stuck through it till the end hoping there would be some grand revelation that made smashing the films together make sense but this revelation never materializes. There's a strong political and social message about moving past social expectations when they are evil, slavery bad, hating **** bad, ignoring psychics bad(wait, what?), taking advantage of the weak bad. Unfortunately, it's about as banal as any of the other individual plots that it almost makes me wonder how awful the writer must be for them to think everyone in the world needs this sort of reminder. The film isn't for children either, so I really can't grasp the purpose for hammering on such a dull moral.
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Production Company
Cloud Atlas Productions,
X-Filme Creative Pool,
Anarchos Pictures,
A Company Filmproduktionsgesellschaft,
ARD Degeto Film,
Ascension Pictures,
Dreams of Dragon Picture,
Five Drops,
Media Asia Group
Release Date Oct 26, 2012
Duration 2 h 52 m
Rating R
Tagline Everything Is Connected
Awards
Golden Globes, USA
• 1 Nomination
German Film Awards
• 5 Wins & 10 Nominations
CinEuphoria Awards
• 7 Nominations
