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Cloud Atlas (15)

Cloud Atlas (15)

Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution.


The critical consensus

An epic, genre-blending indie-blockbuster, Cloud Atlas is ambitious, flawed and divisive. On one hand, it’s an awe-inspiring marvel of effects, plot-juggling and editing. And on the other, it never quite manages to be as emotionally satisfying or transcendent as it needs to be.

Stephen Carty, Flix Capacitor, 13/02/2013

Cloud Atlas is the film equivalent of sixth form poetry – earnest, and sometimes inventive, but more often pretentious and sanctimonious.

**(*)(*)(*)Siobhan Synnot, The Scotsman, 17/02/2013

Some will balk at its excesses, but breathtaking action, profound emotion and a dark sense of fun make this the most ambitious, original movie event in years.

****(*)Hannah McGill, The List, 18/02/2013

Don’t let its commercial nosedive in the US tell the whole story. Cloud Atlas is a tough sell, but a rewarding journey all the same. It’s an adventure into the very concept of storytelling: magical, enthralling and thrilling as much as bewildering, pompous and potty. In other words, up in the clouds.

****(*)Ian Nathan, Empire Online, 18/02/2013

For the most part, the film succeeds as a big, goofy, overblown, but endearingly sincere attempt to do something different. It may be a folly, but it’s a worthwhile one.

***(*)(*)Alistair Harkness, The Scotsman, 21/02/2013

Tykwer and the Wachowskis have laboured long and hard to turn Mitchell’s very literary material into something cinematic...but in doing so, the subtler points of Mitchell’s book are lost in the visual melee.

***(*)(*)Robbie Collin, The Telegraph, 21/02/2013

The film runs wide, but it is as deep as a puddle; simplistic to the point of vapidity.

**(*)(*)(*)Xan Brooks, The Guardian, 21/02/2013

One could carry on carping, but in the end Cloud Atlas survives its lapses and misjudgments. It's tried something new, and that's good enough.

****(*)Anthony Quinn, The Independent, 21/02/2013

A super-colossal flop.

(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)Chris Tookey, Daily Mail, 22/02/2013

While some critics have been turned off by how earnest it is, such grand ambitions and such lack of cynicism actually make a refreshing sight in the multiplex.

****(*)Laurence Phelan, The Independent, 22/02/2013

Ultimately Cloud Atlas has the feel of a wondrous bedtime story in which you always want to know what happens next.

****(*)Allan Hunter, Daily Express, 22/02/2013

No one particular storyline stands out as dominant. In fact they’re edited together so as to equally support and be supported by each other creating a balance between the narratives that makes each as compelling as the next.

****(*)Callum Madge, TVBomb, 22/02/2013

I occasionally winced but was mostly emotionally and intellectually involved, carried along by the oceanic flow. I'm not at all sure, though, that I'd want to see Cloud Atlas a second time – at least, not in this life.

Philip French, The Observer, 24/02/2013

How a vision this brazenly eccentric sneaked past the Warner Bros bean-counters is a mystery, but its dreamy peregrinations will almost certainly account for the season’s most daring and adventurous release.

****(*)Mike McCahill, The Telegraph, 22/02/2013

Every few years, some director lets us know who's the smartest of them all. This year, it's the Tom Tykwer, Lana and Andy Wachowski triumvirate, with Cloud Atlas, a movie experience that is likely to challenge even the committed cinema enthusiast.

***(*)(*)Ali Hazzah, Eye for Film, 01/11/2012


Features about Cloud Atlas (15)

Cloud Atlas: how Hollywood failed to put it on the map

Phil Hoad, The Guardian, 20/02/2013

Where and when?

General release. Check local listings for show times.

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