'Cloud Atlas': A foggy story obscures the beauty

• USA TODAY Review: **1/2 out of four
• Stars: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant
• Rated R; Runtime: 2 hours, 43 minutes; Opens Friday nationwide

Certainly the year's most ambitious work, Cloud Atlas is all dazzling technique and contradictions. The nearly three-hour-long experience is immersive and unmoving in almost equal measure.

This beautiful-looking collection of six fractured narratives woven into one elaborate saga is fascinating, but also bloated, confounding and pretentious.

Cloud Atlas (* * 1/2 out of four; rated R; opening Friday nationwide) is a consistently tangled experience — captivating and frustrating, occasionally enjoyable to piece together, and sometimes a slog.

The cumulative effect is one of spectacle over substance.

But what a spectacle. The cinematography is gorgeous, the editing artful and the production design impeccable. Each cast member is transformed into several disparate characters.

Academy voters might as well hand over the makeup Oscar now. It's massively entertaining to see a familiar actor such as Tom Hanks recycle himself into a curmudgeonly blond-bearded 19th-century doctor and a contemporary, skinheaded, goateed Cockney thug. Halle Berry dons a blond wig and green contact lenses to play the white wife of a composer (Jim Broadbent). British actor Jim Sturgess is given cosmetic eye folds to look Asian, and Hugo Weaving plays a nasty female nurse, reminiscent of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

It's worth staying through the closing credits to see just how many parts each actor assumes. But at times the casting eccentricities can feel more like a parlor trick, distracting from interlocking but often uninviting stories.

The sprawling tale, adapted from David Mitchell's 2004 novel, spans a wide geographic spectrum across several centuries and tackles issues including oppression, freedom and the contours of a predatory world. The story asserts that we are all linked through time.

Directing duties are divided among a trio: siblings Andy and Lana Wachowski (the Matrix films) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run).

The Wachowskis handle the initial adventure, set in 1849 in the Pacific Islands, in which an American lawyer (Sturgess) is tended to by an evil doctor (Hanks) and rescued by an escaped slave (David Gyasi). The tale is less than enthralling, possibly because it's the first in the series and often is interrupted by the others.

Only partially moving is the 24th-century story of a lonely goatherd (Hanks) in a tribe that has reverted to primitive ways and his interactions with a member of an advanced civilization (Berry).

The Wachowskis fare best in a segment set in 2144 in "New Seoul',' in which a revolutionary (Sturgess) joins forces with a "fabricant" (Doona Bae) who rebels against the system that created and subjugated her. The Blade Runner-style visuals are mesmerizing, as is the notion that one man's kind act can lead to a philosophical revolution that reverberates for centuries.

Tykwer helmed the engaging tale of a musician (Ben Whishaw) in 1936 who goes to work for an established composer (Broadbent) and overshadows him with his masterful composition. The director's best segment is set in 1973, featuring a reporter (Berry) who uncovers a plot involving a nuclear power plant run by a megalomaniac (Hugh Grant). The story pays tribute to suspenseful action films of the '70s.

A tale set in contemporary England in which a publisher (Broadbent) is forcibly confined to an old folks' home and stages a breakout has a slapstick quality that feels jarringly out of place in this heady film.

The book's approach was more orderly, while the film aggressively cuts back and forth between stories in a manner that serves more to confuse than illuminate. We're thrust into and pulled out of each tale before we are allowed to develop much interest in the characters.

For a film whose theme is "everything is connected," there's a sharp disconnect between the transporting visuals and the lack of emotional payoff.