CHALLENGING

       MOVIE REVIEW - CLOUD ATLAS

by:

G.P. Manalo

STARRING:

Tom Hanks

Halle Barry 

Jim Strugess

Cloud Atlas - Tells the story of a cast of people who are living their lives in different timelines that happens to be connected to each other

Cloud Atlas is one of those brainy movies that we’d get year after year, that also take a lot of thinking to it, and a lot of listening and watching skills to watch this movie. Getting that away this movie is very polarizing, I don’t really know if I love or hate this movie at all. But I digress, I thought that this movie is a mixed bag but with more good than bad things inside that mixed bag. And If you did not understand that phrase let me just tell you that in detail.

From the first 5 minutes of this movie it literally throws in a lot of story from the different timelines right off the bat, some shows how it end in the beginning of the first five minutes and some shows how it began it is very confusing from the start but as the film progresses they show you each story connects to each other, the ideas, the symbolisms of the film is showing. If I would give my 50-cents to the idea/symbolisms of this movie (I may be wrong) is having each of the people going through extremes and how those extremes can be a huge impact to the future, How your free-will is being turned down by the people around you and how powerful love is, I may be wrong but that’s actually what I got from the movie.

But the problem of the process is the fact that there were scenes in the middle of those segments that doesn’t need to be there up to the point that it confuses the audience of what is going on (especially in the first five minutes), this is always a flaw to some Wachowskis movies where they place unneeded scenes at the wrong time (There were a lot in Speed Racer), I believe that’s one of my gripes I have with the movie, This movie is lengthy and they do show messages a lot in each segments but I believe that some things should’ve been shortened to deliver that said message somehow. Secondly, It felt unnecessary to have some people being the same people in these different timelines but It felt unneeded for that especially how different their concepts of re-incarnated selves, It’s awkward to see how silly Hugo Weaving looks in a womanly incarnation (or a white Halle Barry) as much as I’m happy to see him in that it’s just awkward to see him look like that and also some other actors who are forced to look Asian in the Japanese-near future segments.

The Wachowskis (since they are not brothers anymore) are always known for their visually entertaining scenes hence we had The Matrix, Speed Racer, Ninja Assassin from them in the past few years. The visuals in the movie are visually entertaining, the vast sets of the jungles in the further future, futuristic Japan in the near future and so on. The action is well directed and thought out. Speaking of well-directed, The acting. The acting in this movie is very unique since one actor is going to be 5-6 different characters are just a joy to see. But the joy to see someone do this is Tom Hanks, Tom Hanks is enjoyable for most scenes either him being an asshole or a heroic lover. But also a joy to see is Jim Broadbent the segments of him escaping an Old Folks home is probably the most enjoyable segment of the rest, It gives a bit of life at some point of the film. I’m not really going to detail about all of the cast because this movie literally has a humongous cast of people, but to me Tom Hanks and Jim Broadbent did stood out in this movie (along with Hugo Weaving and Jim Strugess). But what surprisingly hit me as well is Ben Wishaw and James D’Arcy’s segment, Not only did their segment introduce this brilliant score “The Cloud Atlas Sextet”  but also delivers a very emotional (even if they are both gay in this movie) story out of all of the segments in this film.

In the end this is not the masterpiece everyone is saying nor is it the shit train everyone is saying as well but this is a very interesting and great film we have this year. It is confusing at first, but once you take a day or two to connect the dots somehow you end up either being confused (still) or appreciate the movie at least, I can’t really recommend this movie to the simple minded (I swear I’m not calling you an illiterate or stupid person) because this is a rather challenging movie you would ever see this year, If you do consider watching this movie please keep that in mind. This movie does have its flaws but it is a great and challenging movie that I have seen this year or maybe so far in my life.

THE GOOD:

+BRILLIANT PERFORMANCES

+GREAT SCORE

+GOOD VISUALS

+WELL DELIVERED MESSAGES

+SOME ENJOYABLE SEGMENTS

THE BAD:

-VERY UNNECESSARY THINGS BEING DONE THROUGHOUT THE FILM

MY RATING:

4/5 – WIN!