Monday, November 12, 2012

REVIEW: Cloud Atlas



So Cloud Atlas is essentially the Wachowski "Brother's" take on The Hours. If you haven't seen The Hours, don't worry, you're probably a straight male and don't ever need to.

So incase you haven't seen it, Cloud Atlas has perhaps the one of the most heart-warming/wrenching trailers of all time, aka http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnAqFyaQ5s.
It's universal, it's heartwarming, and uplifting, it has everything for everyone and it plucks heartstrings with that solo piano rippling through time and our lives' importance and unimportance.

This movie is the unlosing-est smorgasbord of movie genres as any could possibly be. We have forbidden love, golden years love, gay love, love at first sight, past action, future action, Apocolyptico action, conspiracy theory, apocalyptic distopian future, slavery, blaxploitation, and yet not once in the whole movie did I see a dog. Genius actor Tom Hanks and booty call Halle Barry, I say that because directors cast her and Rihanna for the same reason.



This movie is awesome. Heads above most of the other trash you could see at your Regal Cinemas this weekend. It's funny, it's action-packed, it's heart warming and reassures you about the fears of life, death and afterlife. It's like when your stoner friends get together and start up that conversation: yeah, but if you think about how big WE are and how big the earth is, and how big the universe is, do we really matter? Does anything really matter? Well it does, and this movie shows that we matter to each other and that our actions ripple through time with a persistance that we will never fathom, so treat each other well.

 And before I go into some rants about execution and style management, I just have to say, if you're going to see something this weekend, this'll be heads above Loopers, the Guvnah in another action movie, the millionth James Bond, or Paranormal Activity, or that shitstain by the Regal pig patch Twilight: Ranking Lawns II.


SPOILERS


This movie is going to need two watches to appreciate and though I haven't read it myself, I hear the best experience is to read the book and watch the movie for it's visuals and interpretation. Aside from the action, the different stylization, the eye candy and amazing makeup work, this movie has a lot of heart cheese. I'm not great with emotional films. I will never watch Precious, I couldn't give a shit at the end of Cold Mountain or Green Mile. But in this movie I did care for the characters and some of the love scenes were worth the stakes you put into the characters, though you only got glimpses of them.



Yet some of this great emotion is sucked from your heart to your head when XXXXX and XXXXXX finally kiss and then your thrown back into 1968 and Hugo Weaving is murdering an old man. Sometimes they play out the emotion through all stories simultaneously, which works pretty well, though is a bit erksome. Sometimes they really needed to slow down and just let you be with the characters for a minute to feel for them but too often would cut to another scene for the sake of a cliff hanger. I mean I wanted to mourn Sexsmith's death, he was such a key binding character and a cool one, I mean the song of the movie was named for him.



Seeing the movie for the first time is like watching Inception backwards. There are six plots to follow, the narrator unifying them but you can't keep up because you were distracted wondering it that was Hugh Grant or Hugo Weaving behind all that makeup ? I do enjoy the theatrical aspect of this choice. In a lot of live theatre you recast one actor as different characters so that was enjoyable to watch the acting ranges of the actors.
 Perhaps this is a new form of movies that move along at supersonic rates like Gamer or Crank or Enter the Void. Keeping channel-flipping audiences entertained. I expect we will keep seeing movies that are more episodic and quick-paced than we usually have.

All in all the trailer is actually better than the movie is but maybe that's because the movie is a chore to watch and keep up with, though worth it. I recommend downloading the trailer for rewatch on Snapz and reading the book.