The reverse of that post I’ve made a week ago…
Rules: pick one movie or series and explain why you actually enjoyed it despite the criticism.
For me: The JJ Abrams Star Trek movies, by far the best ST stuff ever made, I couldn’t take seriously the original universe with the dated effects and stiff acting, same goes for NG… These movies did ST actually great looking and much more believable, not just the effects.
Lots of people love to hate Cloud Atlas. I see it as flawed work of art with a good message and an amazing cast, produced under such nearly impossible circumstances that we are more than lucky it ever saw the light of day.
What’s the message? I didn’t really catch any, besides some notions about souls, reincarnation and sex not being fixed.
The things you mention are narrative elements. The message is repeated almost like a mantra throughout the movie, and later revealed or summarized as the ‘prophetic’ words of Son-Mi:
This is the core thesis of the movie, standing in direct opposition to the various antagonists’ ideology, which can be summed up as self-serving nihilism and upholding the status quo of might makes right / the natural order by any means.