Cloud Atlas
(
2012)
Drama |
Mystery |
Sci-Fi
172 min.
Rated: R violence, language, sexuality/nudity and some drug use
|
What parents need to know
Grade: C+
Directors: Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski
Writers: David Mitchell (novel), Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski, Tom Tykwer
(written for the screen)
Stars: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry,
Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent, Susan Sarandon, and Hugh Grant | See full cast and crew
Cloud Atlas explores how the actions and consequences of individual lives impact one another throughout the past, the present and the future. Action, mystery and romance weave dramatically through the story as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero and a single act of kindness ripples across centuries to inspire a revolution in the distant future. Each member of the ensemble appears in multiple roles as the stories move through time. -- (C) Warner Bros.
Cloud Atlas is an epic adventure drama movie written and directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer. It was adapted from the 2004 novel of the same name by David Mitchell. With a budget of $102 million (financed by independent sources; Warner Bros also paid $15 million to acquire the film's North American rights), Cloud Atlas is one of the most expensive independent films of all time.
After their directing debut in 1996 with Bound, the ever ambitious Wachowskis have been blowing minds (or at least trying to) since they hit the 'Big Time' with their second film The Matrix. Well, they're back...and their intentions are the same in Cloud Atlas. The film premiered Sept. 9th, 2012 at the 37th Toronto International Film Festival, where at its conclusion it received a 10-minute standing ovation. Since it's official opening, Sept. 26, the reviews have been mixed -- some say it's an awe-inspiring work of
visual and emotional daring, while others say it's muddled, pretentious,
and overlong.
Cloud Atlas is a series of interconnected vignettes that follows a
variety of characters across centuries. The premise is that seemingly small actions and
events have monumental repercussions. While the novel tells the
stories in chronological order the filmmakers have decided to jump all
over the map, flashing back and flashing forward with total abandon. The pundits agree that Cloud Atlas is a singular film, but while some are thrilled by its monumental scope
and big ideas, others say it's too undisciplined and disjointed to
realize its outsized aims. Here is a sampling of what the critics are saying:
Yeas
"one
of the most ambitious films ever made"... "Even as I was watching Cloud
Atlas the first time, I knew I would need to see it again. Now that
I've seen it the second time, I know I'd like to see it a third time...I
think you will want to see this daring and visionary film...I was
never, ever bored by Cloud Atlas. On my second viewing, I gave up any
attempt to work out the logical connections between the segments,
stories and characters." - Four out of four stars, Roger Ebert
"an
intense three-hour mental workout rewarded with a big emotional payoff.
[...] One's attention must be engaged at all times as the mosaic
triggers an infinite range of potentially profound personal responses."
- Variety
"It
is so full of passion and heart and empathy that it feels completely
unlike any other modern film in its range either measured through scope
of budget or sweep of action. - MSN Movies, James Rocchi
"one of the year’s most important movies". - The Daily Beast
"utterly, wonderfully epic". - Inside Movies
"You will have to decide for yourself whether it works. It’s that kind of picture. [...] Is this the stuff of Oscars? Who knows? Is it a force to be reckoned with in the coming months? Absolutely." - Michael Cieply of The New York Times
Nays
"I'll grant that the film has many layers. All of them are terrible". - New York Post,
Kyle Smith
"unique
and totally unparalleled disaster"..."[its] badness is fundamental, an
essential aspect of the concept and its execution that I suspect is
impossible to remedy or rectify". - Slant Magazine reviewer Calum Marsh
"The
result is maddening, exasperating, occasionally exhilarating -- and
mostly boring". - Christian Science Monitor, Peter Rainer
"Sumptuous visuals and audacious acting, but the quasi-profound message of cosmic connectedness isn't worth all the trouble". - Rafer Guzman, Newsday
"The most disappointing film of the year". - Boston Phoenix, Peter Keough
"Men play women. Women play men. Blacks play whites. An Asian plays a
freckled Victorian. Bad accents flourish. And Hugo Weaving, whether he's
a he, she, or ridiculous hoodoo leprechaun, is always the villain". - Metro Times (Detroit, MI), Jeff Meyers
"At
163 minutes, Cloud Atlas carries all the marks of a giant folly, and
those unfamiliar with the book will be baffled." - The Guardian
Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 60% of critics have given Cloud Atlas
a "fresh" rating based on 158 reviews, with an average of 6.5/10. The
consensus at the site from the collected reviews is "Its sprawling,
ambitious blend of thought-provoking narrative and eye-catching visuals
will prove too unwieldy for some, but the sheer size and scope of Cloud Atlas are all but impossible to ignore".
Over at Metacritic the film's current score is 55 out of 100, indicating 'mixed to average' reviews.
Now
what have I said in the past? If the Film Festival circuit and critics
faun over a film and call it 'important'...beware of your money and
time.
Cloud
Atlas is indeed epic in scope and style with a stellar cast but not
much else. Yes, Cloud Atlas is an epic alright...an epic mess that takes
itself way to seriously!
The
trailer is far more interesting than the movie itself which is
tortuously long at 2 hours and 52 minuets. Each actor takes on multiple
roles, playing each gender and various ages. While an interesting
proposition it is distracting, drawing undue attention to itself
becoming a guessing game of who is that behind the wigs and makeup. (Lana Wachowski was born Laurence "Larry" Wachowski, ya' think maybe that had something to do with the role assignments? In an interview she/he confessed proudly that, in fact, it did.)
Bad
makeup and accents abound and as the actors attempt to disguise their voices from
one character to their next, it harder and harder to understand their
dialogue them making the film even more difficult to follow. Then there
is the post apocalyptic dialect that is so artificial and annoying, it
doesn't work, and I can't let them get away with one of my pet peeves, sutpididty. I'll give just two examples out of many:
1 - Hanks is carrying a child in his arms and is confronted by savages on horseback out to kill the both of them. Facing the horsemen just yards away, he runs and miraculously can out run the horses child in arms for what seems like a mile or more.
2 - The gay lovers in a china shop start breaking the china and figurines at first by throwing them on the floor but progress to tossing them in the air. Suddenly the room is raining down pieces of china.
I was a bit generous in my grading of this film because it is at times bold and inventive and beautiful but the problem is none of those qualities survives the length of the film. Honestly, I think the only viewers that will 'love' this
film would have to be hardcore fans of the novel.
The Plot
Well in all reality there is no plot but here are the six fables:
1 - In the 1840s on a
voyage through the Pacific Islands, a young American (Jim Sturgess)
falls prey to a scheming doctor (Tom Hanks) who is poisoning him slowly to get at his gold but is saved by the efforts
of a stowaway slave (David Gyasi).
2 - In the 1930s, an ambitious English
youth (Ben Whishaw), on his musical quest for fame, is hired as a musical scribe to a
crotchety composer (Jim Broadbent).
3 - In the 1970s, an investigative reporter (Halle Berry), working in San
Francisco, is tipped off by a
scientist uncovering the truth about a nuclear power plant and soon finds life her life in jeopardy.
4 - In the present day, an unscrupulous
London publisher (Broadbent) is confined to an old-folk’s home by his
brother (Grant).
5 - In 2144, in the glittering city of Neo-Seoul, a female
fabricant (Doona Bae) is cloned to work in the food industry but when she is show her fate rises up
against the system that bred her.
6 - Finally, a post apocalyptic primitive forest dwelling tribe, surviving on an island "106
winters after the Fall”, are visited by a superior people, who arrive in a sort of hovercraft/aqua-spacecraft that glides across the ocean.
Now, if you are the type who draws a conclusion as to how the smooth vessel from fable #6 echoes the creaky, tall ship of fable #1, then perhaps Cloud Atlas may be just your kind of movie. Fans, like critic Roger Ebert, will find a need to see the film over and over, in
order to savor the plethora of connecting links through time and their New Age, shall we say, beauty and wisdom yadda, yadda, yadda.
The modern publisher, in fable #4, while on the train is reading a manuscript subtitled “A Luisa Rey Mystery,” and Luisa Rey is the name of the
California reporter from fable #3 and she had a little friend, an
inquisitive kid, in her apartment building who, we now realize, has grown up to be a writer of
mysteries and uses her name for his heroine, and the nuclear
whistle-blower who assisted her, was first seen, decades before, in bed
with the young musician, and so on, ad infinitum...or ad nauseam (if you're seeing it like me).
This interweaving
narrative is the author Mitchell’s, however as I noted earlier, his story lines in the book follow one another in chronological order but in the film, thanks to the the Wachowskis and Tykwer, they are tangled like a plate of lo mien noodles, with the 'genius' idea that there would be no loitering in any one period of time or on any singular character from any of the six fables. The tone of the film gets the same treatment, we flip flop from the
farce and whimsy of old folks escaping from a prison like retirement home,
to the glittering, sterile, severity of Neo-Seoul, an Orwellian utopia of corporate conformism. This
Wachowskis’ created world, like that of the Matrix series, is an oppressive society where every character must, without fail, regardless of circumstances, maintain an emotionless poker face.
The morphing of actors becomes sort of a cruel joke on Jim Sturgess, whose eyes and features
have been rediculously reshaped to make him look Asian,
the brave and noble Hae-Joo Chang. Changing a cacausian face to look Asian is an iffy proposition whenever it is tried. It usually fails and it sure as heck didn’t work for Mr. Sturgess, it creeps beyond an embarrassing makeup job into the realm of insult. When
actors criss-cross continents, centuries and races as Tykwer and the Wachowskis have demanded of their cast there is often a price to be paid.
Hanks, early on, is a
grizzeled old shaman from the primative future covered in scars
and tattoos, he later appears with a tacky beard, a gold chain and a bad
accent as a vengful Irish writer, who throws a cocky, pompus critic off
of a balcony at a party.
Hugo Weaving has been seen in drag before and as a drag queen daddy in Pricilla Queen of the Desert he was 'fabulous!' and he's at it again in Cloud Atlas as a busty, menacing, no nonsence nurse Noakes.
Granted, some of these transformations work and are fun but the problem with most of
these morphings, regardless of their bold conception or how eagerly they were played, the inevitability is
that they draw attention to themselves. When the credits roll and reveal all the roles, no matter how brief, that each of the actors played there were incredulous laughs, hoots and applause from the audience, admttedly, some surprized me. There is Jim Broadbent, for example, in the background in a scene clad in white
sci-fi robes that you simply would never have noticed. Your headline actors also playing extras, it's a clever gimmick but at best is still a distraction from the film itself.
Cloud Atlas as a whole should (none of the fable segments would stand alone as as a viable fim on in its own merrit), and perhaps could, be made into a good, possibly great film, but this is a muddled mess.
Cast
Hotel Manager Native Woman Captain Molyneux
Isaac Sachs Vyvyan Ayrs Jocasta Ayrs
Dermot Hoggins Timothy Cavendish Luisa Rey
Zachry Korean Muscian Indian Party
Cavendish Look-a-Like Actor Prescient 2 Guest
Ovid
Meronym
Haskell Moore Talbot Autua
Tadeusz Kesselring Hotel Manager Lester Rey Bill Smoke Yoona-939 Duophsyte
Nurse Noakes Rose
Boardman Mephi
Old George
Cabin Boy Young Rufus Sixsmith Adam Ewing
Robert Frobisher Old Rufus Sixsmith Poor Hotel Guest
Store Clerk Nurse James Megan's Dad
Georgette Archivist Highlander
Tribesman Hae-Joo Chang
Adam
Zachry Brother-in-Law
Rev. Giles Horrox Madame Horrox
Hotel Heavy Older Ursula
Lloyd Hooks Yusouf Suleiman
Denholme Cavendish Abbess
Seer Rhee
Kona Chief
Kupaka Tilda
Joe Napier Megan's Mom
An-kor Apis Mexican Woman
Precient Sonmi-451
Sonmi-351
Sonmi Prostitute
Skyfall
Daniel Craig does a great job as Agent 007. This film
doesn't rely on the tired cliche of many previous Bond films. James Bond
is feeling his age and mortality as is M (Judi Dench), Eve (Naomi
Harris) is a nice addition to the cast. This film is more believable
than the outlandish stunts and special effects that made previous Bond
films ludicrous if not silly. Some of the action is a little incredible but nothing like the preposterous stunts like riding a motorcycle off a cliff and the safely skydiving into a moving airplane, at least there is an inkling of possibility in even the most outlandish scenes in Skyfall. Silva (Javier Bardem) is a credible
nemesis matching Bond skill for skill and for good reasons but I will not
give away the reason for that at this juncture.
MI6 agents James Bond and Eve assist on a mission in Turkey to recover a computer hard drive stolen from a murdered MI6 agent that contains details of almost all undercover NATO agents in terrorist organisations. Bond and Eve chase the killer, mercenary Patrice, and attempt to recover the disk. During the chase, Bond is shot in the shoulder. While fighting Patrice, Bond is accidentally shot by Eve and is later considered "missing, presumed killed".
The head of MI6, M, comes under political pressure to retire during a meeting with the Intelligence and Security Committee Chairman, Gareth Mallory. On her return from the meeting, MI6 is hacked and an explosion occurs in the offices, killing eight MI6 employees. Bond, having used his supposed death to retire, learns of the attack and returns to London. Shrapnel taken from his earlier shoulder wound helps identify Patrice, and Bond tracks the mercenary to Shanghai.
Sévérine, whom Bond saw earlier during the assassination, warns him that he is about to be killed, but promises to help him if he will kill her employer. Bond beats his attackers and joins Sévérine on her boat. They travel to an island, where they are taken prisoner by the crew and delivered to Sévérine's employer, Raoul Silva. A former MI6 agent working under M, Silva holds her responsible for his torture and imprisonment by the Chinese. Silva kills Sévérine, but Bond overpowers his guards and captures Silva for extraction to the UK.
At Skyfall, Bond and M are met by Kincade, the gamekeeper to the Bond family estate. The trio are only lightly armed, but they improvise a series of booby traps. When Silva's men arrive, Bond, M and Kincade fight off the first assault, although M is wounded. Silva arrives by helicopter with a second wave, and Bond sends M and Kincade off through a secret tunnel at the back of a priest hole to a chapel on the grounds. The second assault uses firepower from the helicopter, and Silva throws incendiary grenades into the building. Bond detonates two gas canisters with a stick of dynamite and retreats down the same tunnel as M and Kincade.
