Maybe the achievement of “Cloud Atlas” should be quantified rather than judged in more conventional, qualitative ways. This is by no means the best movie of the year, but it may be the most movie you can get for the price of a single ticket. It blends farce, suspense, science fiction, melodrama and quite a bit more, not into an approximation of Mr. Mitchell’s graceful and virtuosic pastiche, but rather into an unruly grab bag of styles, effects and emotions held together, just barely, by a combination of outlandish daring and humble sincerity. Together the filmmakers try so hard to give you everything — the secrets of the universe and the human heart; action, laughs and romance; tragedy and mystery — that you may wind up feeling both grateful and disappointed.

Though the six sections flow together more or less seamlessly, it is also possible to divide the movie into Wachowski and Tykwer halves. Mr. Tykwer’s contributions are those that take place closer to the present — they concern the composer, the journalist and the publisher — whereas the Wachowskis leap back to the past and forward into the future. They are less concerned with efficient storytelling than with the maximization of spectacular and intellectual impact, with blowing your mind and explaining the cosmos. The Wachowski chapters are bigger, grander and noisier, while Mr. Tykwer’s are tighter, funnier and more emotionally resonant. The tale of Frobisher is perhaps the only piece that could stand alone, a perfect novella of artistic rivalry, sexual misbehavior and poetic despair.

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Considering it in isolation is difficult, however, and contrary to the film’s design. A major difference between the movie and its source is structural. Mr. Mitchell nests his plots inside one another, splitting each one to make room for the others and making his book into something like a set of Russian dolls or a turducken. Mr. Tykwer and the Wachowskis — abetted by the heroic editing of Alexander Berner — have abandoned this symmetrical literary design, opting for the more cinematically manageable technique of crosscutting. The narrative strands are woven together, elegantly plaited and quilted at some points, tangled and snarled in others. Connective tissue is supplied by music (composed by Reinhold Heil, Johnny Klimek and Mr. Tykwer), by voice-overs and visual echoes, and also by the reappearance of the same actors in elaborate but nonetheless transparent disguises. Mr. Weaving, for example, memorably pops up as a devil, a Victorian capitalist, a sadistic female nurse, a corporate-totalitarian bureaucrat and a hit man.

Zachry the goatherd is played by Tom Hanks, sporting facial tattoos and speaking in a futuristic pidgin. (In Zachry’s language, “aye” means “yes,” “cog” means “know” and “true-true” means “very true indeed.”) Mr. Hanks also plays, among other roles, a scientist who aids the journalist’s investigation, a London gangster and a 19th-century quack attending to Adam Ewing, the ailing South Seas traveler. (That poor fellow is played by Jim Sturgess.) The muckraking journalist, Luisa Rey, is Halle Berry. She also appears as Meronym, who visits Zachry’s island as part of a delegation of technologically advanced researchers. And she is almost unrecognizable as Jocasta Ayrs, married to the temperamental maestro, played by Jim Broadbent. He is, elsewhere, a ship’s captain and the luckless publisher Timothy Cavendish.

You see what I mean about quantity. Simply enumerating the rest of the cast members and saying what they do would turn this review into a Domesday Book of postmodern film acting. And identifying the flavors of ham they import to the proceedings would require an advanced degree in charcuterie. There is, in any case, a lot of acting here. It is delivered by the bushel, by the truckload, by the schooner, and the quality varies.

Mr. Broadbent is, as ever, delightful, and Ben Whishaw is perfect as the witty and passionate Frobisher. Hugh Grant indulges in some sly, vulgar villainy, with impressive prosthetic teeth, and Susan Sarandon floats through a few scenes trailing mists of love and weary wisdom. As Sonmi, the South Korean actress Doona Bae is a haunting, somber presence.

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Sonmi awakens from a life of grim deprivation — a condition of slavery that is horrible to contemplate and horrifyingly easy to imagine — into an awareness of the possibility of freedom. The tale of how she recovers her humanity (and the cost she pays for it) becomes scripture in Zachry’s time, and her fate is also the allegorical key to the rest of “Cloud Atlas.” In every chapter powerful forces work to constrain, exploit and otherwise suppress the individual and collective desire for liberation. Alliances form between victims and sympathetic members of the race or caste in power, and even when their efforts are doomed, they manage to keep some hope alive for the future.

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Mr. Tykwer and the Wachowskis emphasize the spiritual rather than the political dimensions of Mr. Mitchell’s novel and at the same time make his meanings less elusive and more accessible. Perhaps too much so. “Cloud Atlas” aspires to be a perception-altering head trip in the tradition of “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “The Matrix.” But instead of leaving you trembling in contemplation of metaphysical mysteries, it succumbs to the term-paperish explication that weighed down “V for Vendetta” and the second and third “Matrix” movies. Its reach is admirable, but its grasp is, if anything, too secure.

For a movie devoted to the celebration of freedom, “Cloud Atlas” works awfully hard to control and contain its meanings, to tell you exactly what it is about rather than allowing you to dream and wonder within its impressively imagined world.

The movie insists — repeatedly and didactically — that a thread of creative, sustaining possibility winds its way through all human history, glimmering even in its darkest hours. A beautiful notion, and possibly true. But unfortunately not quite true-true.

“Cloud Atlas” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has nudity, violence and sexuality, past, present and future.

Cloud Atlas Directors Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski

Stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving

Rating R

Running Time 2h 52m

Genres Drama, Sci-Fi

Movie data powered by IMDb.com

Last updated: Nov 2, 2017