I would not have been able to figure out this review if it weren't for the help of  foxtail2350 who read the book and was able to remind me of everything that happened in the movie and clarify a couple things. And for those who have read the book, he said the movie is the best adaptation that a movie medium can concieve. Any changes made just leaves more for both mediums to be appreciated with.

And with that enjoy the review and tell me what you thought of the movie and this review :D

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Cloud Atlas

***½

You know I can’t help but feel daunted. Sitting here, curing cancer and trying to find an ounce of decency in a Nicki Minaj song is one thing, but trying to write a compact cohesive review for this movie is sending me over the edge. I guess now I know how of the makers of this year’s epic, Cloud Atlas, feel. Even with the release of The Avengers this has to be considered the most ambitious and largest movie projects of the year. A movie with such a high concept, more suited for the high brow, smoking, thick brim glasses indie scene; to have so many big name actors and directors backing it. Including a budget over a $100 million to support a film adaptation of a book that was considered unfilmable is almost unheard of. It’s was also never expected for The Avengers to pull off what it did and to have not one but two movies of the same calibre to pull that off in the same year is nothing short of a miracle. What differs the two are that The Avengers has the benefit of the character development and advertisement established in the previous five films so as to not have absolutely everything crammed into one movie. While Cloud Atlas has no previously established characters and just has the word of Tom Hanks and the longest yet most incredibly vaguely intriguing trailer to be seen. It’s like both have incredibly off the hook parties and one you know everyone before hand and the other you only know the host and have to awkwardly figure out everyone else on your own. Those kind of parties can go either way, you can either put in the effort, get to know people and have a good time, or just sit in the corner and wallow in self loathing and cry-sterbation.

While it’s usually best to go into any movie with a completely clean slate, it may be for the benefit of my loyal readers to at least have an idea of the tricky plot that is Cloud Atlas. The movie is not one long linear storyline spanning several centuries, but instead six separate linear storylines that take place in different centuries: a traditional sea voyage, a period romance, a political thriller, a lighthearted British One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a sci-fi action, and a sci-fi fantasy adventure. What makes this great is not just that it gives something for everyone but how it makes all these seemingly different stories connect like the pages in a wet book of short stories. It doesn’t always make connections like that in Slumdog Millionaire, where one action affects another and everything having a purpose, but instead they’re all strung together by similar characters, circumstances, actions and even actors. ‘Everything is relatable’ may have been a more appropriate tagline for this movie, but whatever, ‘Everything is connected’ just sells better. The movie though doesn’t just concentrate on a singular story at a time but instead jumps from one to another and back again; to make these connections more apparent, relative and to form a single story. Sometimes these jumps span centuries with such simplicity that it could even make a stubborn Alan Moore and Stanley Cupric bring a tear to their hairy eyes. Sometimes even with a single line of dialogue or simple action can juxtapose, contrast, emphasize and create irony to any situation. But jumping around so often can leave the viewer very little time to become absorbed in each storyline’s world, which are all incredibly atmospheric. It can become frustrating when you have to constantly re-learn a post-apocalyptic people’s slang over and over and over. But soon you learn to become absorbed in the situation instead rather than of the world.

Immersion of the situation also comes courtesy of the daring notion to have a relatively small cast (when put into perspective of the movie’s size) to return in different roles, as different people, much like a stage play. This is achieved due to actors reminding you as to why they’re called ‘big name’ and by some of the most convincing special effects make-up seen on screen. Only allowing you to see the actor underneath when the directors allow you to make that connection. This goes for all the actors except Tom Hanks, I don’t see how anyone can ever hide that nose or screen time agreement. Seriously there has been so much work going into the make-up effects that the filmmakers make sure you notice by practically pushing your face into it by the end credits, literally. Actors can even bleed the rules of race, roles and gender both ways, finally letting Hugo Weaving return in drag for the first time since Priscilla. It’s like witnessing, for the first time, the rules of the internet with all dignity still intact; and that’s just the make-up. With the inclusion of gorgeous cinematography, beautiful music, exciting action and jaw dropping worlds, Cloud Atlas is definitely one of the most stimulating movies of the year.

Actors reprising roles? Similar circumstances, actions and dialogue? This isn’t just that same story over and over again is it? While this may make the movie sound like its own broken record, the filmmakers try with every effort to transcend that objective. It could’ve and should have emphasized that narrative more by pointing out real historical events that are repeated time and time again or to have regenerated characters make the same mistakes but pacified differently. Then you could say that this movie is not about that but instead about the structure of story itself. It’s not just about how these stories relate to each other, but how all stories do. This feels like a movie that many film students will be studying, because even though the connections will have you intriguingly scratching your head, it will come to a satisfying end.

With such a big movie like Cloud Atlas there are going to be some big emotions going at it, either mass love or mass hate. I’ve found over the course of writing this review is that the mass majority of the people who hate this film are the ones who don’t understand it. As pretentiously hipster as that sounds, it’s true. I can’t put it into better words than how the awesome Vincent Price school teacher did in the recent Burton film Frankenweenie, in that what the issue is that they are all very ignorant, sorry I meant stupid. You don’t understand it therefore you are afraid of it, much like how a dog is afraid of lightning or balloons... Wow, that was a great connection I made there... *gasp* I GET IT!