I know that so many people like to rag on the Wachowskis for what happened with the 2nd and 3rd installments of The Matrix, but when push comes to shove, I don’t know that I know of a more ambitious filmmaking duo working today.

Bound was great, The Matrix was revolutionary, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions may have bit off more then they could chew (but had their moments), and Speed Racer was an amazing, mind-melting homage to 1970s Japanese Animation, complete with storytelling flaws.

They return at the end of this year with Cloud Atlas, a film so ambitious that the first trailer takes five minutes to get you an idea of what you’re going to see, and even then it’s hard to get.

Here, let’s try the synopsis of the book it’s based on:

A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified "dinery server" on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation — the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other's echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.

In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity’s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.

Essentially, you’re going to see the same characters throughout different eras and centuries, and their lives will all strangely reconnect. But…even then, I’m not sure I have it.

Here, you watch the trailer. (Or see it in High-Rez over at Apple)

How cool was that? Looks beautiful visually, has an A-List cast with actors like Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Wachowski favorite Hugo Weaving, and it will be running nearly three hours.

Whatever Cloud Atlas ends up being, I applaud the attempt at doing something completely unique, and we will know for sure how it turns out when it hits theaters on October 26th, 2012.