Movie Talk

Title: Cloud Atlas

Directed by: Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski, and Lana Wachowski

Writing credit: David Mitchell (Novel, Cloud Atlas

Written for the screen by: Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski, and Tom Tykwer

Run Time: 172 mins

Cast: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, Keith David, James D’Arcy, Xun Zhou, David Gyasi, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant, Robert Fyfe, Martin Wuttke, Robin Morrissey, and Brody Nicholas Lee

Rating: R for violence, language, sexuality/nudity and some drug

Full list of cast and crew at www.IMDb.com

Cloud Atlas is one of the best movies I have seen in 2012. Cloud Atlas is based on a novel by David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas follows six different stories where the characters and connected in the past and future, their actions in one life determine how their next life will be. Cloud Atlas is a huge movie and is very entertaining. Because there is six stories and the story can be quite confusing at times , I am going to give the basic plot of each story.

(Note the stories do NOT happen in this order, there is no specific order, this will be explained later in the review.)

1849: The first story follows a lawyer Adam Ewing who goes to a slave plantation to look over a contract while visiting the plantation he passes out while witnessing a slave being lashed. The lawyer then wakes aboard a ship with a crazy doctor who is trying to kill him. The lawyer faces another challenge, he finds that there is a stowaway slave on the ship, now he must decide to tell the captain about the slave of help hide him.

1936: This story follows Robert Frobisher, a gay musician who finds work helping a famous composer Vyvyan Ayrs write his music. This allows Robert to work on his own music Cloud Atlas Sextet. Vyvyan wants to take credit for Cloud Atlas and threatens to tell everyone that Robert is gay and would ruin his career.

1973: The Third story follows Luisa Rey who is a journalist she get stuck in an elevator with an older man who happens to be a nuclear physicist, he tips her off on conspiracy on the safety of a nuclear reactor, he is eventually shot by a hitman before he can give her the report that would proof this conspiracy.

2012: The story revolves around a publisher Timothy Cavendish who gets himself into a big pickle after his client Dermott Hoggins murders a critic after giving his book a bad review, the sales on his book skyrocket, but he hasn’t gotten any of his shares of the profit because he is in jail for murder. The author sends his associates to get his money, not having the money to pay them Timothy turns to his brother for help. The brother tricks Timothy into hiding at a nursing home that he believes to be a hotel. This leads to a plot with other residents in the home to escape.

2144: The fifth story follows a clone Sonmi-451, who is a server at a fast food restaurant, she is being interviewed before her execution she recount on how Hae-Joo Chang who is the leader of the local Resistance helped he escape from the restaurant. She joins the resistance after finding out what is really happening to the clones.

2321 106 winters after “The Fall”: The final story follows a tribesman named Zachry, he is tormented by the tribes “Devil” after not helping his brother-in-law is murdered by a tribe of caniables The tribe is visited by Meronym, a member of the “Presidents”, the last remnants of a technologically advanced civilization. After she saves his niece, Zachry agrees to take her into the mountains in search of Cloud Atlas, an outpost station where she is able to send a message to people who have left Earth and now live on other planets.

Before and after seeing Cloud Atlas I read tons of reviews and a lot of people have been negative towards this movie, out all of the reviews half of them gave it bad review because of two reasons 1. The length of the movie. 2. They were confused by the story. Now yes Cloud Atlas is a long move it three hours long but that is no reason to give to it a bad review. I would rather pay for a movie that is three hours long than a movie that is only 1hr and 45mins, you get more out of your money. Also Cloud Atlas has six stories it has to be longer than the average film, there is a lot to cover. Reason number two, yes the story can be quite confusing especially if you haven’t read the book, but if you pay attention to the movie it will eventually begin to make sense. There is reason why I think a lot of people were confused by the story because as I mentioned before it’s not played in order, it jumps back and forth from one time period to another. You can be in 2012 and then before you know it you are back aboard the ship in 1849. That is way I think a lot of people were confused. Also you really pay attention you will find that each story has the same theme, and that is courage and pretty much doing what is right, each story does something different with this theme.

Normally when I mention the name of a character I name the actor but for this movie I am not doing that because it would take the fun away from trying to figure out what actor/actress play a certain character, each actor/actress plays as multiple characters, some are easy to recognize some aren’t and that is because of the work of the make-up. I could definitely see this movie winning an Academy Award for best make-up.

One of biggest reasons I love Cloud Atlas is because it’s not a drama, it’s not SC-FI, and it’s not a comedy is a combination of all them. One story can be a drama and then the next one is a comedy, its like you are seeing six movies for the price of one. Also what I really liked about it how one minute it can be a slow-paced scene and then a second later you are in futuristic gun fight, or a sword fight, and then it slows down and becomes a comedy.

There was one flaw I had with Cloud Atlas and that was with the last story, in this story they have a heavy accent that makes it hard to understand what they are saying, this was only a problem for about five minutes, I had to listen a little closer to understand the dialogue. There was a review that I read were the critic said that he gave up on trying to figure out what they were saying and that they should have had subtitles. To me that statement was just an excuse so that he wouldn’t pay closer attention to the movie, and it dosn’t need subtitles they are speaking english it’s just a little hard to understand.

Finally if you are looking for a great way to spend three hours, watch Cloud Atlas it really is a great movie the story is original, the make-up is fantastic, the acting is realistic it makes you care about each character, and the fact that this movie was made when many critics said that it was unfilmable but this wonderful cast and crew proofed all of them wrong. Please don’t listen the reviews that only gave a low rating because of the length and the complex story, see this great movie you will not be disappointed.

Rating: 5/5 A+
(This is a review from my blog)