Rent Cloud Atlas (2012)

Cloud Atlas (2012) - What a waste of good talent - Cloud Atlas review by CP Customer

After watching this 2 hour 45 minute movie for the first hour of its run I was asked "Are you as bored as I am and have you got a clue yet as to what this is all about?" by 'she who is to be obeyed.' My reply after trying to work out what the hell it was all about was "Hell yes I'm bored and no I haven't worked out what it's all about yet."

Actors and actresses with the talent of those used in this production have been sorely let down by those who employed them.

As has been shown in this outing, movie makers can over complicate movies which then subsequently puts off their audience and makes them more weary of what the movie maker may off them in the future.

This was a book/story that should never been considered for the big screen, but left in the imagination of its readers...................

An exciting and creative exploration of human connection and oppression - Cloud Atlas review by ER

You should know the deal with Cloud Atlas (CA)'s premise, so I won't repeat it.

You should also know, then, how ambitious a task it is to translate CA to the screen. It is one I believe the Wachowskis were overall very successful in undertaking:

GREAT THINGS ABOUT CA

First, the film's ambition and scope is something to praise by itself. CA darts between history, place, genre, mood. All six stories are gripping, and there's a breadth of emotion, a diversity to the cast of characters, and an accomplished effort at building up these six worlds visually that makes for stimulating viewing.

As to how these storylines are tied together, the film tells all six side-by-side, darting rapid-fire between scenes from each. This is in contrast to the novel, in which readers are given stories one half at a time. Some reviewers here feel this "scene-slicing" aspect is confusing. I personally found it an enormous improvement on the book, creating a more vivid sense of the work's themes of connectedness between human lives - scenes link into one another in creative ways, one always ending with a line of dialogue or event that is somehow echoed in the start of the next.

With that, I found the film also improved greatly on the novel by streamlining its stories - the novel is filled with unnecessary fluff and side characters who are largely excised here. Sonmi 451's story was particularly enhanced in the elimination of the novel's irritating twist ending.

Similarly, there are numerous plots which frankly just function better on screen. The Sonmi 451 and Luisa Rey stories for example fall into the action/thriller genres, and benefit from the tension and excitement of action sequences that cannot be accomplished in the meagre 80 pages the novel gives them.

LESS GOOD THINGS

Thematically, the film examines how our lives connect with and depend on one another's, the profound ability we have to shape each other's fates, and the recurrence of forms of oppression and the struggle against them throughout history, from white supremacist anti-black chattel slavery to a future slave class of clones owned by a fast food mega-corporation.

The idea of our lives being interconnected is not the most insightful or original statement. However, it is admittedly a powerful one. It makes for an almost bittersweet observation on the human condition: our interdependencies can be a source of love and hope, or taken advantage of in betrayal or deceit. CA lays bare the complexities and inconsistencies of human nature in a way that leaves me, for one, wondering about our lot.

The film is less successful in its political statements on struggles against oppression. The novel's ambiguous ending is replaced with a somewhat trite, platitudeness, more optimistic statement that just says how "we" can take action and there's hope we might win. Bit generic and feel-good for my tastes.

Similarly, the film can be critiqued on its treatment of race. CA uses yellow-face to allow non-Asian actors to play Korean characters in the neo-Seoul plot, for which it was widely criticised on release. Similarly, the film falls into a white saviour arc in the Adam Ewing plot, Ewing befriending a stowaway slave escapee on his ship and then joining the abolitionist movement. This is sort of answered in the final story, where white settlers on Hawaii are rescued by the all-black "Prescient" saviours, but it's up for debate how successful this "post-racial" film-making approach is.

A final nitpick is that CA, while generally successful in structuring the six stories, has a weak opening. Just seeing the set-up to each story in the first 20 minutes of the film makes for an awkward start.

In all, though, CA is an exciting, intriguing, and thought-provoking work. As someone who found the novel frankly mediocre, I was pleased by its film treatment. If you're a fan of the novel or of the Wachowskis, or if you like a film with a more out-there premise, you should see CA.

A sprawling, ambitious piece of film making - Cloud Atlas review by RP

A sprawling, ambitious piece of film making that weaves together six storylines set across many centuries - and indeed, as the ending shows, space as well.

With a stellar cast appearing with different makeup and playing different roles in each of the six stories, only superb directing could make this work. And it has those skills applied to it in an unusual arrangement with three directors: Tom Twyker and Andy and Lana Wachowksi.

This is a complex, lengthy (2¾ hours) project - so is it a cinematic masterpiece, a superb philosophical drama, a masterful adaptation of an extremely complex novel, or is it a turgid, pretentious, bum-numbingly long piece of over-ripe tripe?

I watched it first about 6 months ago and was impressed by its scope and scale, and now I've watched it a second time. And I'm still not sure - I may even have to watch it a third time...

It is difficult to describe the overall scope of the film, but to give a flavour here are the main storylines: (1) The 17th century experiences of Adam Ewing on a voyage to the S Pacific islands. (2) The story of Robert Frobisher, a bisexual composer of classical music in the 1930s (3) Set in the 1970s, the tale of journalist Louisa Rey who uncovers a conspiracy by Big Oil to allow a disaster at a nuclear power plant (4) Set in the present, Timothy Cavendish is held prisoner in a nursing home - but escapes (5) Set in a futuristic 22nd century Seoul, Korea, Somni-451 is a fabricant, a clone used for menial work. She becomes enlightened, part of a rebellion, and broadcasts a manifesto. (6) Set in a post-apocalyptic Hawaii, Meronym, a woman from a tribe with some remnants of technology is guided by Zachry to a mountain top observatory to broadcast a signal to the off-world colonies.

Err, that's it - and each of these stories and characters interacts with each other. Perhaps the most telling of these is in (6) where Somni is revered as a goddess. Segments of each story are cut and mixed together so that there are abrupt jumps from one to another. Strangely, this isn't confusing and once you've got it in your head which story is which (and that's why a second viewing is helpful) it seems to work quite well.

Unfortunately I find Tom Hanks to be a 'wooden' actor, so the fact that he plays a main lead (there is no single 'lead' here) gave me an immediate problem, a problem that I also have with Halle Berry who I generally find to be an unconvincing actress. And unfortunately the fact that they spend much time talking to each other in (6) in a simplistic pidgin English does nothing to help matters.

The film is bookended by Tom Hanks reading stories (in pidgin English, of course) to his grandchildren, presumably the stories of the film.

There are elements of humour - the 'cat incident' (you'll recognise it when you see it) made me laugh out loud. There is drama, sci-fi and fantasy. I'm impressed by the scope, by the music, by the cinematography - but I found the philosophy, while somewhat beguiling, to be simplistic and the whole film became, by virtue of its length, turgid.

I will definitely try to find the time to view it again, but at the moment I'll give it 3/5 stars. It's one of those films you'll probably either love or hate - and at the moment I'm sitting firmly on the fence...

Dont bother - Cloud Atlas review by CP Customer

Boring Confusing couldn't keep up don't know what was happening next lost track did no know what was going on??

Are some books simply not meant to be filmed ?? - Cloud Atlas review by Rod

Hmmm.... Hmm again...

I enjoyed the book a couple of years ago - it was chunked to set out a series of different stories sequenced through time with a definite, detectable but tenuous thread between them. With the film, I was anticipating a clever, intriguing story-line that would envision for me pretty much what the book chapters would "look like", with the interpretation of the futuristic episodes most interesting of all..... I was disappointed after about 20 minutes

So, the chopping of sequences was rapid-fire and seemed quite unlike the book. And, apart from the different characters' comet-shaped birthmark [ big deal! ], I didn't detect a strong-enough link between the stories. I persevered for about 90 minutes then hit fast-forward for much of the rest of the film. With the continual darting backward and forward in time, I would have much preferred one story at a time. Then about the futuristic peasant-speak ( I assume these folk were 'peasants') I wondered whether sub-titles would have helped, but then it might have looked word-for-word just the same (sorry guys, a bit flippant there). All in all a clever book, but a translation to film that seemed too turgid and 'worthy' for its own good.

Maybe, as said by another reviewer, some books are best left to the imagination and thus unfilmed ! But... I will now read the book again ... and hire the film again in say 6 months time....