If I could only use one word to describe this movie it would be: AWESOME! Big caps, exclamation point and all.

Cloud Atlas, based off the book by David Mitchell, is a hard movie to summarize because of the way it was done. The overall theme is the thought that everyone is connected through past lives, which has always been and intriguing thought to me and probably was one of the reasons why I loved the movie so much.

The beginning was a bit confusing because it jumped around so quickly, but as the story unfolds the flow of the movie becomes smoother and easier to understand. It was also fun guessing which actors played which characters, because there wasn’t a large cast but there were a lot of characters. Since the movie is about past lives, each actors played more than one character. The advertised actors are Tom Hanks and Halle Berry; however, there are other well known actors in the movie, such as Hugo Weaving (Lord of the Rings) and Jim Broadbent (Harry Potter).

Overall, Cloud Atlas is a must see, although I would only really recommend this movie to people who are more into science fiction/fantasy films or those who are big movie buffs. Cloud Atlas is 3 hours long, so be prepared for a long sit. I knew the movie was over 2 hours, but it didn’t feel like a 3 hour movie. While I did recognize that the movie was really long, there wasn’t an instance of boredom because the story keeps you attached to the characters. Also, if you zone out at any point you may get a bit lost. So if you’re bored and just looking for a movie to see, I recommend seeing something else unless you’re prepared for 3 hours of connecting dots mixed with amazing acting, scenery and special effects.

Grade: A+