When you seek out making one of the most complex narratives ever captured on film, to whom do you turn? The man who directed Run Lola Run, of course, Tom Tykwer. And, to conjure it into being, you’d need director/producers that defy convention: Andy and Lana Wachowski. There’s no need to even explain the effect of casting Tom Hanks, Halle Barry, Susan Sarandon, Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Jim Sturgess, and Doona Bae in this highly ambitious film known as Cloud Atlas.
There is so much going on in this 3 hour long barrage of perpetually sprinting plot canvassing a millennium of history told through 6 story lines stitched together with circus-like feats of makeup, effects, and camerawork that cover every major theme of human experience, it might be best to invoke Roger Ebert’s infamous review of Pricilla Queen of the Desert, “Dr. Johnson famously remarked of a dog’s ability to stand on its hind legs, that it was not done well, but he was surprised to find it done at all.”
Cloud Atlas isn’t really a film you can summarize. You can only point to what it attempts: a movie that seeks to capture the very character of humanity, and in so many ways astoundingly succeeds. The film is a rolling die that never lands; a hundred questions that need to be asked but not answered. The story is touching, bold, fantastical, triumphant, heartbreaking, and epic. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to make reference to film without sounding grandiose. HOWEVER the film never loses itself is endlessly entertaining, something that can only be understood upon viewing it, which I couldn’t more highly advise.
Rating: A grandiose film that never loses itself and is endlessly entertaining (9/10)
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