I recently read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, because it has very good reviews. It wasn't actually very good. It smacked of someone trying to be clever but not actually being very clever at all. It wasn't a terrible read but I wouldn't really recommend it.
I haven't seen it, and I'm not sure I'll bother to be honest.
I thought the film was actually better than the book (which is so rare). They couldn't have really done the film "straight" (it would have been awful if they had tried), but what they actually did was true to the spirit of the book - and an improvement on it, IMO.
I was pretty hyped up to read this book after seeing so many recommendations, and completely agree with you -- I didn't find the book to be terribly good or particularly clever and came away feeling like it was completely overhyped. I definitely second the recommendations to skip the movie, as it really doesn't work well.
Haha, I wish! No, it's a different David Mitchell.