If this movie could be summed up in one simple phrase, I would go with "Babel on steroids". Like the 2005 film, Cloud Atlas consisted of a series of interconnecting plot lines that come together to create a single story. Those plot lines were sometimes set hundreds of years apart (from the 19th all the way to at least the 22nd century) and featured locations from around the globe.
Unlike Babel, however, structuring the film in such a way worked significantly to Atlas' disadvantage. Not only were the plot lines larger in number, but the the themes and material being dealt with had immense philosophical, sociopolitical and sometimes metaphysical undertones, so it was quite a lot to take and difficult to follow. This difficulty was further compounded by the fact that each actor (the cast was superb) played at least half a dozen parts throughout the various plot lines. This was not a bad idea in-and-of-itself, but here I think they took it a little too far. Another issue was that some of the characters spoke in such heavy/unusual accents (and sometimes not even in proper English) that a good part of the dialogue was hard to understand.
On a more positive note, the photography and visual effects of the film were excellent. The audience is treated to sweeping vistas of the Pacific islands, high-speed car chases on the streets of futuristic Seoul and beautiful views of pre-War Britain. The costuming and make-up were also superb. In many cases they were so good that I didn't know which actors were playing which parts until they were revealed in the closing credits (some actors played characters of both sexes).
As far as the overarching storyline goes, I detected subtle hints of Buddhist philosophy: all life- whether past, present or future- is connected and that there is always a desire to obtain truth and inner peace, no matter how high the cost.
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