Cloud Atlas:
The film follows six different time periods and shows the surreal ways in which they are all connected: In the South Pacific Ocean in 1849, a San Franciscan lawyer seeks to arrange a business deal with a slave plantation to assist his father-in-law, meanwhile being poisoned by a greedy doctor and bonding with a stowaway slave; In Scotland in 1939, a young man leaves his gay lover to work with a famous composer to create his own masterpiece "The Cloud Atlas Sextet", while writing letters to his lover; In San Francisco in 1973, a young reporter begins to uncover the truth about the new nuclear plant being built near the city, while being hunted by a bloodthirsty hitman; In London in 2012, an elderly publisher is at a party when Cockney gangster Dermott Huggins (who has written a terrible book that the man has published) throws one of his harshest critics off a balcony and is sent to prison. He then must escape Huggin's three gangster brothers, and accidentally is confined to an old folks' home, but plots an escape. In the new city, "New Seoul" in Korea, in the year 2144, a fabricant clone is enslaved to a life-long servitude to a fast-food joint, until she is freed by a soldier of the local resistance, whom she falls in love with, and he reveals to her a Soylent Green-style world that the public is unaware of (foreshadowed earlier in the 2012 timeline.) Finally, in the abandoned Hawaiian Islands 300 years after the previous timeline, a tribesman named Zachry assists a young, technology-savvy visitor form an off-world colony in sending out a beacon for help, while avoiding the Kona, a tribe of vicous cannibals, and whilst being haunted by visions of "Old Georgie", his tribe's version of the Devil. The cast is large and often show up in different time periods, sometimes as different races and genders (which is used to comedic effect). The film has a flip-floppy tone, but it works. Instead of just showing the six stories in chronological order, it with shift between each, giving them enough time to progress forward, then moving on to the next which saves it from being like most antholgoy films where some are just bookend stories. The cast includes familiar faces like Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugo Weaving (From the Wachowski's The Matrix, as many of you know, who always plays a villainous character), Susan Sarandon, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, Hugh Grant (who alos often plays a villain), Keith David, Ben Whishaw (Q from Skyfall), Doona Bae, and James D'Arcy. They all have varying roles from heroes, to villains, to complex characters. They all give fantastic performances, and sometimes only show up for a brief moment, unrecognizable. Even some background actors do multiple timelines. The way they tie together all the stories is truly clever and detailed, as each time period is watching or reading some from of each story. Examples: The post-apocalyptic Hawaiins watch a recording of the 2144 story, the 2144 characters watch a movie based on the 2012 story, the 2012 characters are reading about the 1973 character, the 1973 characters are reading letters from the 1939 story, and the 1939 characters are reading a book based on the 1849 story. Also, all the characters somehow hear the Cloud Atlas Sextet somewhere in time, possibly in a dream or in a store, or in a car. The visuals and special effects are breathtaking, and truly work in the IMAX format. (Although I saw it in a regular theater.) Some of the action scenes, such as the chase throuh Neo Seoul, the fight with the Konas (who are like the orcs in that they never cease to be creepy or threatening), and the comedic fight in the Scottish bar in 2012, are fantastic. Cloud Atlas deserves the 3-hour runtime, as it's an experience, not just a movie. You need to pay attention, so no bathroom breaks. It's truly a masterpiece, and I hope the Wachowskis come out with less movies like Speed Racer, and more like this. 5/5 stars.
(Image: Wikipedia.)
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