Cloud Atlas, a Review

A few things I learned from tonight’s screening of Cloud Atlas, the new film by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski siblings:

1) oil companies are even worse than the nuclear power industry,

2) Hugh Grant can’t do an American accent to save his life,

3) making up an Asian person in prosthetics to look Caucasian looks strange but not as ridiculous as the reverse, and

4) Hugo Weaving always plays every role as Agent Smith from the Matrix even when playing a woman. It gets old.

As you may or may not know the film (based on the novel by David Mitchell) follows six separate narratives and connects them by featuring the same actors throughout playing different characters by covering them in lavish makeup and prosthetics. One follows a man who builds a relationship with an escaped slave stowaway on a ship while dying of an illness in the late 1800’s, another follows a young composer in I believe the 1920’s, another, the exploits of a journalist in 1970’s San Francisco trying to scoop a nuclear power plant’s secrets, another in the present where an old man schemes to escape the old person’s home he’s been exiled to by his brother, another in the distant future where a replicant fights for her right to exist, and finally, another in an even more distant future where a sheep farmer helps a scientist find a means to communicate with someone off planet in hopes of escaping Earth (at least I think that’s what was happening there).

I was excited to see this film and while I have not read the novel it was based on I did read the New Yorker feature about the Wachowski’s which described the details of the sibling’s struggles to get the film made and piqued my interest before I had seen the previews. From what I picked up the film seemed to be different, maybe something not seen before, and damn ambitious. While ambitious (this is the most expensive independent film ever made) it is also mostly an unoriginal piece of work, infact almost a completely patched together recycling of other, better movies edited into one. Not that I’m saying you shouldn’t see it. If you have to go out to the movies then this has got to be the best thing out right now (besides The Master) and although that may be not saying much based on the current releases, I stand by that comment.

Here’s the thing: If you liked the Mad Max Trilogy then you’ll like this movie because both The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome are in this one. If you liked Michael Clayton then you’ll like this one as well with Halle Berry as a less interesting stand in for the Clooney character. If you liked The Matrix then you’ll really dig the part about that replicant, which even features the actor Jim Sturgess made up to look like Keanu Reeves and he even does some Neo moves in the real world (which doesn’t make much sense).

That section of the movie, titled “An Orison of Sonmi-451” was my least favorite part of the film due to it’s Matrix like qualities: futuristic video game like nonsense violence, cardboard characters, false sentiment, shallow revolution, etc. The Korean actress Bae Doona made it tolerable due to her doing one of the few interesting and nuanced performances in the film.

My favorite section of the movie by far is the story entitled “The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish” which had the whole theater laughing and applauding with joy. The story about a gang of senior citizens escaping an old person’s home was by far the most interesting and original threads of the movie and also featured the most un-Tom Hanks Tom Hanks performance as a blood thirsty cockney thug (by the way, in case I don’t get a chance to mention it, Tom Hanks is still the shit and acts the hell out of all 55 parts that he plays in this movie. PS: Halle Berry is still drop dead gorgeous too).

Overall, this movie comes very close to being good before getting blocked by a few too many desperate grabs at the emotions. If these directors are going to portray a suicide then they’re not going to just have the sound of a shot and loved one running towards the door, they’re going to have said loved one hold the dead body and cry hysterically while stroking the blown out skull cavity and covering themselves in blood. If someone says goodbye to another character then they are going to look at each other at least six times and single tear is going to roll down one of their cheeks. Personally, I feel you can tell the story of the human spirit’s resilience over the course of hundreds years and still employ subtlety.

That’s just one man’s opinion.

11-4-12