Title: Cloud Atlas<\/p>\n
Directed By: Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski, Tom Tykwer<\/p>\n
Starring: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, James D\u2019Arcy, Keith David, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant, David Gyasi<\/B><\/p>\n
Usually when I catch a movie, I\u2019m busy scribbling down notes, some of which pertain to the film\u2019s plot, just so I\u2019ve got the facts straight when writing the review. However, in the case of \u201cCloud Atlas,\u201d not only did I want to save my hand all that stress, but thought it\u2019d be interesting to see what stuck after the 164-minute multiple storyline epic without writing a single note or looking at the press notes. No book, no notes, no Googling. This is what I took from \u201cCloud Atlas.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve got quite a few characters and storylines in play here. There\u2019s Tom Hanks\u2019 Zachary, a man living in a village, fighting off a vicious enemy tribe while assisting Halle Berry\u2019s space-age character in her quest to send a call for help to her home planet. In the 1800s, one of Jim Sturgess\u2019 characters befriends an escaped slave while sailing home to his wife. In the early 1900s, Ben Whishaw\u2019s Frobisher goes to work for a famous composer where he gets the inspiration to pen the Cloud Atlas Sextet. In the 1970s, Berry is a journalist who catches wind of a scandal and is chased by a corporation assassin trying to stop her from exposing the story. In the present we get Timothy Cavendish, a man who\u2019s tricked into signing himself into an old age home by his brother. Finally, well into the future, we meet Sonmi, one of many identical robot-like humans who are made to staff a fast food restaurant. They\u2019re designed to sleep in their boxes, wake and go to work, but one day, Sonmi can\u2019t help, but to recognize that she\u2019s got hopes, dreams and feelings.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t believe it, but I think I actually managed to account for every \u201cCloud Atlas\u201d scenario. Yes, they\u2019re merely simplistic descriptions of the stories, but when you\u2019ve got a total of six narratives within a single film that don\u2019t connect on a literal level and are all playing out simultaneously, it\u2019s a wonder how someone can keep track of them all after a single viewing. And perhaps that goes to show that writer-directors Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski and Andy Wachowski did achieve a degree of success with their unusual methods.<\/p>\n
However, just about every achievement in \u201cCloud Atlas\u201d comes with a downside. In the case of the story format, yes, it\u2019s incredible that each scenario makes an impact, but it also begs the question, would they have been more memorable told in full, individually? And the answer is a big, fat yes. The directing trio absolutely nails the transitions, finding astoundingly smooth ways to transport the audience from one time period to the next, but because the stories aren\u2019t connected on a tangible level, it\u2019s impossible to appreciate the film as a whole. Yes, characters say that we\u2019re all connected and all that nonsense, but \u201cCloud Atlas\u201d never makes you believe it.<\/p>\n
The film does stir some emotion, but because we\u2019re constantly being whipped from narrative to narrative, the feelings are fleeting. At a point, Cavendish and his old age home buddies will make you want to cheer and one of Hanks\u2019 characters pulls something that\u2019ll make your jaw drop, but the moments come and go so quickly, they\u2019re easily forgotten. They propel their mini narrative forward, but nothing happens on the grander scale and that, in turn, makes \u201cCloud Atlas\u201d feel much more like a haphazard montage.<\/p>\n
The film finds itself in similar trouble on the visual front. The makeup in this movie is absolutely incredible, but once you catch on, it becomes more of a game of spot the actor than appreciating the work within the story. For example, Sturgess is almost entirely unrecognizable as Sonmi\u2019s savior, but once you figure out that it\u2019s him, the prosthetic work starts to look like a mask much more so than a real person. Similarly, it\u2019s funny seeing Hugo Weaving dressed up as the rough and tough Nurse Noakes, but it\u2019s nothing more than a novelty.<\/p>\n
Set design is generally spot on. In fact, it helps ground every segment. We\u2019ve got an assortment of stories with all sorts of crazy things happening and actors running around with different faces on, but the landscapes are always consistent. The environments look like the 1800s and the 1970s and in the case of settings that might require a little suspense of belief, like the wooded village with a futuristic spaceship sitting in the water nearby, the directors put extra care into introducing the visual, doing so in a way that doesn\u2019t make a grand statement about the element that doesn\u2019t belong, rather makes the landscape the norm.<\/p>\n
\u201cCloud Atlas\u201d is certainly an achievement on a number of levels, just not as a whole. The makeup is unforgettable, the visuals are downright breathtaking, every actor shows off incredible range and honesty, but when the biggest takeaway from a 164-minute movie is the tacky montage revealing who played who, it\u2019s tough not to label the work an exhausting experimental gimmick.<\/p>\n
Technical: A-<\/p>\n
Acting: A-<\/p>\n
Story: C-<\/p>\n
Overall: C<\/B><\/p>\n
![\"Cloud](\"http:\/\/g-ecx.images-amazon.com\/images\/G\/01\/imdb\/plugins\/rating\/images\/imdb_31x14.png\")