Cloud Atlas Review
A bit of a conundrum.
I have to admit I have been putting writing this off for a while. I saw the film Friday night and have been trying to figure out if I like it or not ever since. Normally, even if a movie is mixed I can readily pick out the good and bad elements and say “I liked this but hated this.” However, with this film even the elements I disliked I also liked on some level, whereas the parts that were cool also annoyed me. Trying to follow all six stories was a huge pain in the ass, but most of the stories were cool and reasonably original (from each other), although in context to each other really foggy yet at the same time simplistic. The vast number of characters was bewildering, as was trying to keep track of who was occupying by each soul, but to a man or woman they were all interesting and engaging. There were some great visuals, but for some bizarre reason the sound quality really sucked, at least as far as the dialog went.
This is one of the reviews that will inevitably attract comments from pretentious blowhards about my inability to “get it” like intellectual flies drawn to a picnic lunch left in the sun too long (see my review for Tree of Life for a good example of that). I want to state that for the most part I do “get” the point being made in this film: that we are reincarnated as a group in life after life together and the good and ill that we commit will affect our station in the next one. Furthermore, the love of your existence will resurface in one form or another in each incarnation. I actually like that a lot. I have a strong desire to believe in both reincarnation and karma (of course if that were all true than based on my dating life now I must have been Ghengis Khan in a previous life). I just don’t know how necessary that message is, or how well it was delivered here.
This film suffers from two major problems that I can see. The first is the same problem that plagues other multi-line stories like New Years Eve or What to Expect When You’re Expecting, in that by having six different stories with completely different characters you never really identify with any one of them and therefore not really care a lot. However, this film is so in advanced of that dross that comparing the two is like comparing a slug to Robert DiNero. This film makes up for a lot of the connection issues inherent in multi-lines by employing amazing actors and characters that really draw you in. However, each of the sub plots ends up feeling really undeveloped and insubstantial. I honestly wish I could have seen each of the stories fleshed out into a separate movie, although that would have ruined the overriding message that was being delivered. This movie does not lack for ambition, and in the end it feels like they might have tried to keep too many balls up in the air.
The other issue I had was the dialog. I don’t know if it was a sound quality issue, the homemade dialects, or the Clockwork Orange-esque linguistic idiosyncrasies, but I honestly didn’t understand about 2/3rds of what was being said. I was able to surmise most of it from the context, but for the majority of the film I felt like a ten year old listening to my parents talk about sex using allusion and secret words. I was able to get the big picture of what was being said but a lot of the more specific and subtle references were completely lost on me. It was frustrating and distracting.
The film is six different stories, all starring the same set of actors in different roles. There is a story about a young man in the early part of the 19th century on a ship being poisoned by a doctor while trying to help an escaped slave, a hot reporter in the 70’s trying to uncover the secret behind a nuclear power plant, a young composer in the early 20th century dealing with his homosexuality while composing a symphony called the Cloud Atlas, a modern book publisher who gets tricked into incarceration in an old folks home while fleeing from British thugs, a cyberpunk replicant slave girl who escapes the lies of her existence in a nightmarish futuristic Seoul, and a post apocalyptic survivor who helps a young woman contact off world colonies in an attempt to escape a dying and poisonous Earth. Tom Hanks (Saving Private Ryan, Philadelphia, Forest Gump) plays six different characters, Halle Berry (X-Men, Catwoman, New Years Eve) plays six, Jim Broadbent (Gangs of New York, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (bleh)) plays five, 
Hugo Weaving (Matrix, the Lord of the Ring, V for Vendetta. Middle Earth image courtesy of the Movie T Shirt category) plays six (all of them villains), Jim Sturgess (21, One Day, the Way Back) plays seven, Doona Bae (the Host, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Take Care of My Cat) plays six, Ben Whishaw (Bright Star, Skyfall, I’m Not There) plays five, and Keith David (the Thing, Platoon, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) plays four. The stories connect only connect in the most tertiary manner, but each of them has something cool going on (although I was much more intrigued by the two sci fi stories).
The stars. The acting was tremendous. Seriously, Tom Hanks managed to pull off six completely different and believable characters, all of them intriguing. The rest of the cast rocked as well. I was most surprised by Halle Berry. She has developed extremely well as an actress, and I am going to have to start taking her seriously. Three stars. The movie had some amazing visuals, especially Neo-Seoul. Two stars. Each of the stories had the seeds of a great one, especially the sci fi ones. One star. Pacing and story balance were great. One star. Overall an extremely intriguing and interesting movie. Two stars. Total: twelve stars.
The black holes. Taken as a whole, the story is foggy and lacks direction. Two black holes. Each of the sub stories is like a seed planted in the shadow of a big rock, stunted and weak. One black hole. The freaking dialog and my inability to understand it was driving me berserk. One black hole. The overall message was on the prosaic and simple side for such a complex story. One star. Said message could actually be easy to miss, especially if you hadn’t seen all the trailers that more or less explain it to you. One black hole. Total: seven black holes.
A grand total of five stars. Should you see it? Absolutely. Even if you find it confusing and annoying, this is a movie that should not be missed and should be seen on a big screen if only for the experience. I’m not going to say it’s a cultural classic like Star Wars or even the Matrix, but ten years from now you will feel like you missed something when people are talking about Cloud Atlas and you have to say you saw it on NetFlix. Date movie? Maybe. The visuals are good, but if she gets confused by the complexities of the stories (no sexism implied here. I was getting confused by the complexities of the stories) that could turn her off, and if you give in to your natural instinct to explain things to here you could come across as a pretentious blowhard, leaving you at home alone with nothing better to do than post comments here. Bottom line, there are better date movies out there. Bathroom break? This movie clocks in at a massive 172 minutes (although to be honest, it didn’t feel like it) so odds are you will need one. I would recommend holding it if you can, however. If you have no choice I think the modern story with the book publisher is the least important and engaging sub plot, so every time you see Jim Broadbent bumbling around on screen that is your time.
Thanks for reading, and for your ongoing support. Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. If you have comments on this review or the movie feel free to post them here. I try to respond to all of them, and as long as you keep it civil will post them. Any off topic questions or comments can be emailed to [email protected].
I’m a little slammed right now with work, by the way. I will try to see some movies this week (Skyfall tonight, I think) but have come across some stories I wrote about my father that are pretty funny. If I don’t have time I might start throwing those up for laughs. Let me know what you think.
Dave
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