I hadn’t heard a word about Cloud Atlas until the six minute, convoluted as all get out “trailer” hit for the film back in July. As I stated in a comment section for that trailer then, it seemed like a giant confusing cluster of a mess with no through story. In shorter form I disliked it. It’s rare I watch trailers much these days. I like to be as surprised as possible by films. That six minute trailer reminded me of another reason why, I walked into Cloud Atlas with a chip on my shoulder toward a film that seemed like a mess.
Cloud Atlas last nearly three hours. The fact that it took a six minute trailer, that didn’t really tell you much of anything about the film should have been a sign that this was an “epic.” The sad part is, the story ends up selling the film short. Cloud Atlas follows several characters that are seemingly connected from one lifetime to another. The one trait that is used to drive this home is each of these characters having a distinctive birthmark that they all share. In each of these lifetimes the characters, usually played by the same actors, are all shown to lead various different lives. From thug life, to family men, to nefarious types out to murder for money and many other places in-between. The through of the story revolving around the actions, be them kind or evil of past/current lives and loves impact our future person. Thankfully the film refrains from ever getting preachy or dipping its toes into any kind of religious dealings. Though its still all rather heady stuff. I talked with several others about the film for a good hour after the film let out about various facets of it, and it seemed to bring impassioned responses both for and against from the half dozen folks I talked to about Cloud Atlas.
Initially I loved everything that was going on for the first hour and a half to two hours of the film. It was at the late point of Cloud Atlas that it began to falter. There are six co-currently running stories. The film in the early goings effortlessly jumps from one to another. You have to be ready to sprint out of the gates. Assuming you can keep up you’ll be rewarded and enjoy each of these thinly related stories and characters, there is some good stuff in there and some outstanding performances from the ensemble cast including lots of Oscar bait, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, and no less than Keith (my emphasis) “Fucking” David. The film falters once the stories, after several crescendos that seem to lead to the penultimate point of their stories continue and wear out their welcome. Think LOTR: Return of the King and it’s ending, after ending, after ending times six times and you kind of get the idea. After nearly three hours and getting the grand point to the story at around the two hour mark there was no easy way to wrap things up in either way. Do it to quickly and it feels messy and incomplete. Give each of the six stories their proper due, as its done, and its going to take 45mins to an hour to wrap things up after your audience has already wrapped up in their minds.
While I walked away from Cloud Atlas a bit down, thinking of it, as I called it back in July, a Tree of Life for the Sci-Fi set I do have to commend filmmakers Larry and Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer. Cloud Atlas is an extremely ambitious film and is quite beautiful to look at. It does a lot of things right in its approach and tackling of such a grandiose story. The three filmmakers collaborating ultimately make the right calls. The film just gets hamstrung in It’s “unfilmable” source material leaving them in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation after the story feels like its been told.
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