To put it bluntly, Cloud Atlas will go
down as one of the most ambitious movies ever made. A near three-hour
epic spanning across centuries with the members of its cast
portraying multiple characters through six separate storylines across
time. Yes, the latest film from the Wachowskis and Tom Twyker is one
to be admired for this trio's efforts of adapting a novel that many
deemed unfilmable and making it work on the big screen. This is a
film that I cannot explain completely just through words. But one
thing that is certain is that this is not a perfect film. On one
hand, it's compelling, well-acted, and it stays consistent in the
right areas when it needs to be. However, the way it juggles these
multiple storylines is rather problematic and it's not entirely clear
how all of these storylines connect to each other in the first place.
Cloud Atlas is not a single story, but
a group of stories that takes us from the 19th century to
a post-apocalyptic future. We follow a notary (Jim Sturgess) as he
travels across the sea whilst battling an illness, a musician (Ben
Whishaw) as he writes music for an old composer, a journalist (Halle
Berry) as she investigates into a unsafe power plant, a publisher
(Jim Broadbent) as he tries to escape from a mental hospital in which
he is confined in, a fabricant (Doona Bae) as she escapes to inspire
a rebellion in a dystopian future, and a tribesman (Tom Hanks) in the
post-apocalyptic future. Throughout the film, we learn how the
actions of one character impacts another in the past and future and
how a killer can be a hero in another life, and vice versa.
First off, you have to admire this
film's scope and ambition. There really hasn't been a film like this
before that has tried to juggle all of these storylines into one
single film and for the most part, it works very well here. The
narrative never falls apart at any point, even when the film starts
to move rapidly through all of these storylines. However, there's one
problem that emerges from this. It seems like some of these six
stories felt more important than others. The two segments set in the
future seem to get the most screen-time out of all of the six
storylines, but the segments about the musician and the notary seem
unimportant as the film spends more time in other eras than these
two. The segment with the journalist almost falls to that level, but
it does get really thrilling near the end. Finally, the segment about
the publisher has the best humor in the entire film. So basically,
the two future segments and the one with the publisher are the
standout parts of the film.
Really when you get down to it, I
actually didn't see how all of these stories were supposed to be
connected. This might be because I never read the book this was based
on, but to me the only real ways these stories were connected were
for two reasons. First of all, excluding the first story, the main
character of each proceeding storyline learns of the previous' main
character's adventure through various means, whether it is a diary or
a 'dramatic reenactment'. Aside from that, we of course have the fact
that these actors portrayed multiple characters across time periods.
Part of me feels like that wasn't necessary, but it is pretty cool to
see each actor in different roles and see how they adapt to each
character they play. Some of these characters even have them doing
something that is against what they are used to, as some of these
characters have them change race and even gender on some occasions.
That does not mean that this is a bad
movie, because it is far from it. Even though it's almost three-hours
long (apparently it's much longer overseas), it's never really dull
and it's just plain intriguing to watch. Even if some storylines are
focused on more than others, the tone is very consistent and it never
really makes any jarring shifts, except for one instance where we
transition from a light-hearted chase scene to a thriller. The acting
is also very solid, and there is not a single bad performance from
this cast. The standout would probably have to be Tom Hanks (one of
the few who is literally in every era), but we also have strong
performances from Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving (even though pretty much
all of his characters are bad guys (although he was awesome as this
demon spirit-like character in the post-apocalyptic future)), Jim
Sturgess, Jim Broadbent, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Grant, and Susan Sarandon.
Really, I just don't know what to say
about this film. On one hand, I admire this film's ambition, its
scope, and the terrific cast. But this is not exactly a perfect film
either. I couldn't really see how all of these stories were supposed
to be connected aside from the fact that each actor was playing
different characters through time. On top of that, I feel that more
was needed for some of the other segments not set in the future, but
then again that would probably detract from the original source
material. To its credit, the film never got dull and even though I
never read the book this was based on, it wasn't really that
confusing. However, I would recommend you at least read up on this
book before seeing the film because otherwise you'll probably be
confused at what's going on.
Rating: 3/5
