10 Sci-Fi Movies That Were Way Too Complicated
5. Cloud Atlas
Just because something makes a great book, that doesn't mean it makes a great movie.
We've seen this with things like the original Dune movie, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Watchmen. In 2012, we got another entry into this canon with the big screen adaptation of Cloud Atlas.
Based on the acclaimed David Mitchell novel, Cloud Atlas spans six different time periods that all have their own stories going on. Tom Hanks, Hugh Grant, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, and more famous faces get involved in the fun... well, if your idea of fun involves being utterly baffled for almost three hours.
The idea of trying to weave six different plots together is enough to give any screenwriter the mother of all migraines. Whilst Tom Tykwer and The Wachowskis did their best, they were always fighting an uphill battle.
Whilst there's nothing wrong with the actual story of Cloud Atlas, it just wasn't handled in the right way to make it work for the screen.
Maybe the best thing to do is just to wait thirty years and then let Denis Villeneuve have a crack at it.