'Cloud Atlas' a reminder that eye candy is never all that filling

The settings — from past to distant future — are detailed enough to make James Cameron weep.

And the performers — often almost completely obscured by prosthetics and makeup — have a field day, tearing into the sorts of roles conventional movies would never offer them. Berry doesn't get to do much in her more outrageous guises. Broadbent comes off the best — being the least obscured in most of his scenes and anchoring the film's funniest episode as a publisher on the run from the mob, but narrating his tale for a book that he is sure will be a movie (starring Tom Hanks, as it turns out). Hanks has fun as a shaved-head Cockney gangster-turned-author who deals with unflattering reviews of his autobiography by hurling a critic off a modern-day London rooftop.

A warning shot at reviewers? Maybe. But don't be fooled by raves for this emotionally barren eye candy. It may have some lovely grace notes, may talk of love, pack in a couple of cliffhangers involving love saving the day, but you won't feel for anybody.

"Cloud Atlas" may seem to give us a lot to chew on. But when you've run this many themes, plots and plot points, characters and settings through your scriptural Cuisinart, what's going to come out can seem like predigested mush.

"Cloud Atlas" is rated R for violence, language, sexuality/nudity and some drug use; running time: 172 minutes.