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After reading the book it seemed to me like it would make a really great movie, but only an absolute idiot would take on the mammoth task of transforming these six completely different stories into a single movie. Well with three directors and an insanely long list of acting stars, this is the finished product.
To describe this movie in a short paragraph seems like an impossible task, but I will give it a go. Essentially the film contains six different and apparently unconnected stories spread across time and space. These include a ship sailing across the South Pacific in the 1800's, an early 20th century composer in Scotland, a reporter in San Francisco in the 70's, modern day England as told by a book editor, Korea in 2144 and 'The Big Island' somewhere far in the future after the Earth has undergone a drastic change. That's about as much detail as you are going to get out of me but each story has its own intricate plot-line and its own special link to each of the others. The official description provided by the film makers (and Wikipedia) is '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 to a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution' so make of that what you will.
When I read the book I have to admit that whilst some of the stories were interesting, creative and engaging, some were just horrific. Some started well but went downhill, and some really didn't catch on until the final few pages, and this pacing problem was captured perfectly by the directors (all three of them). Thankfully, the film didn't take the route of the book where half the story is told and then you have to read through all of the others ones to get to the second half. No. This one decided to chop and change between stories so much that it was pretty difficult to keep up and follow what was happening in each element individually let alone how they were all connected. This was only added to by another aspect of the film which I personally think was overall a good choice, but was poorly executed, and that is the decision to give actors multiple parts across each of the stories. This just added to the confusion and detracted from not only the characters, but the story as a whole (if there was one).
To continue talking about the actors, with a cast list like this you expect the best you can possibly get, and I don't think they disappointed. The element that I have an issue with involves the role the actors were given. Some of them were incredible. Ben Whishaw as the composer, Halle Berry as the journalist, Jim Broadbent as the editor and Hugo Weaving as basically all of the bad guys were great. Tom Hanks also gave great performances in all roles, but you would expect that from one of the greatest actors ever. The issue begins with the make-up. I can understanding casting a man as a woman when the make-up is effective, but something about the prosthetics and make-up in this movie was just a bit off. From every fake nose to strange wig to turning a white guy into an Asian (I will let you imagine what that looks like) it just all didn't quite work. This therefore completely ruined any performance given as all I could think was 'that look slightly racist'. As well as this, I feel that the performances were rushed which is in no way that fault of the actors; it just restricts what they are able to do. Overall, I felt that great performances were overshadowed by production choices and poor execution.
To wrap this thing up, I believe that some of these stories could've been made into full length movies just on their own, and some don't deserve to see the light of day. This mixture of the good with the bad throws the whole movie off and makes what is already a long and complicated film even more so. It's a shame because some of the film is genuinely enjoyable; it's just surrounded by crap on either side.
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