The bigger they are: Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas. I saw this on the recommendation of my friend, Daryl. And I would be quite angry with him were he not the one who provided my lovely profile pic.
To understand why this film failed, one first has to understand that the full scope of its ambitions: this film uses one core set of actors (all very talented and most quite famous), and then gets them to play a different character, sometimes bending gender and even race, in a series of different stories that are supposedly interconnected- these segments are all in different time periods, and, perhaps more daringly, different genres. Some of these segments could've made entire films on their own- I want to see a full length feature of The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (an old man is tricked into entering a nursing home ruled over by a tryannical Hugo Weaving in drag) with the exact same cast. Oh, and one of these segments isn't in Present Day English.
Let's start with that, because as a Linguist, this concept fascinates me, but it just makes no sense. I don't know enough about language trends to accurately predict what future English will sound like, so they may have got it spot on. But then, why in the other future segment do they speak Present Day English? Especially since it's set in Korea? Honestly, the cryptospeak just irritated me- especially because Tom Hanks decided to mutter through that segment (only marginally worse than his Irish accent); it was confusing enough to try and decipher what was happening in that section (it was the only one which was pure fantasy, with an appearance from the devil himself).
And then there's the re-use of the cast. The film seems to want to have a theme of reincarnation, and the re-casting thing could have been an obvious, but effective, visual metaphor for that. But then, that's not actually what the recasting is for. Because the actors don't play the same character in every time line: Tom Hanks is the villain in the earliest story, but a hero the rest of the time. We all adore Jim Broadbent in the present day segment, but detest him in the 1930's. But then, we're meant to just always hate Hugo Weaving? Who, it's finally revealed, is the devil.
One couple is together in every story line, but the gay couple only meet once (we'll get to that in a second), even though one of the gay lovers ends his life (spare me) declaring that he'll meet his lover again. They never do.
Or do they? Because then, it's sort of hinted that the character bearing the comet birthmark is the same person in every time line, even though this character is nearly always played by a different actor. But then WHY CAST THE SAME ACTORS IN EVERY STORY LINE?!! (P.S. If you think you lack the context to understand what I'm saying, know that possessing the context does not make anything better).
You could say I'm being simplistic and that I should cherish a film that challenges me. I don't mind not having everything signposted for me: I object to artists employing techniques (like double-casting) just to be buggery. Art made for the sole purpose of confusing people is not worth my time.
And then we come to delicate issues of race and sexuality. I'm just gonna say it- as well as being incendiary and possibly offensive, the race lift make-up is just ugly. It makes the characters look ridiculous. I laughed at Hugo Weaving in asia face. It wasn't threatening, it was just stupid. The unfortunate implications of the race lifts are, I think, mostly mollified by the fact that actors of all races are made up to look like all other races, so it is, at the very least, equal opportunities discrimination.
The homophobia, however, is not so balanced. There were, as far as I could tell (not really all that far- this film was just befuddling), three main couples in the film: Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, Jim Sturgess and Doona Bae and Ben Whishaw and James D'arcy. One of these things is not like the others: for one thing, it's the only non-interrace relationship in there, so kudos for that. But it's also the only homosexual relationship. And it's the only relationship which doesn't work out in any time-line, and in fact ends in suicide (seriously, spare me). The problem with gay tragedies is that it shows homophobia (the force which leads to said suicide) as being more powerful than gay love; this film then adds insult to insult by insinuating that gay love isn't as strong as heterosexual love, since it doesn't reach through time the way the other couples do. In fact, the two gay characters don't even meet in any of the other storylines. Nil points.
All in all, this film just tries way too hard and fails accordingly. If they hadn't tried to be so fancy with the double-casting, it might just have been lightly scrambled, but they were too clever for their own good and ended up with egg all over the floor.