Cloud Atlas Review

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Cloud Atlas Review 8/10

A lot going on in this film, it is quite deep but you can take away as much as you want to.

An exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present and future. There are 6 intertwining story lines that cut in and out on each other.

1). 1849, in the south pacific, Adam Ewing, a young attorney is travelling from from San Francisco to a plantation. He meets a slave, Autua, who is viciously beaten. Wanting to escape his live as a abused slave he smuggles on board the ship, where the pair meet. Confused on whether he should follow the rules or his morales Adam does decide to become friends with Autua. The unlikely friendship saves them both.

Ewing falls ill during the voyage and is treated by seemingly good natured doctor, Tom Hanks. We discover the Dr is in fact killing Ewing for his money. Excellent villainous piece of acting, masterfully flipping from kind and reassuring to alarming and intimidating. While bringing down the mainsail the captain orders him to be shot being shot but Autua is judged on his stunning sailor abilities and can stay. Thus he saves Ewing by killing the doctor in just enough time.

Ewing returns to his go home to his wife (Doona Bae) where he tells his overbearing and racist father-in-law (Hugo Weaving) that he will no longer work for him. He’s moving up to join the revolution against slavery Leading to my favourite line,

Father: “What do you hope to achieve, when all you are doing Is a drop in an ocean?
Ewing: “What is an ocean but a multitude of drops”.

2). 1936. Ben Whishaw plays talented, young composer Robert Frobisher, who is loved by Rufus Sixsmith (played by James D’Arcy). After jumping from a hotel window the lovable scoundrel makes his way to retired composer Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent) with the intention of recreating a masterpiece. We mainly learn through letters to Sixsmith that Frobisher is coming up with the new masterpiece “Cloud Atlas”. Ayrs claims the music is his and keeps Frobisher imprisoned until Frobisher 'accidentally' (see it to form your own opinion) Ayrs.

On the Run and desperate, Frobisher knows due to Ayrs' influence Cloud Atlas may be a masterpiece but remain hidden. Sixsmith tracks down his lover but is held up by Hugh Grant refusing to let him pass. Running up the stairs he hears a gunshot, he arrives just to late to save his lover. Very emotional, moving acting from James D’Arcy. And the suicide is not overdone as it can be. Also Halle Berry plays Ayrs’ stunning younger wife. Tom Hanks plays a hotel manager, and Hugo Weaving plays the older composer’s friend.

3). 1973, oil dependent U.S.A. Luisa Rey, (Berry) is an small town persistent journalist in San Francisco. Who is accidentally (or fate?) stuck in an elevator with a much older Sixsmith, who is now working as a physicist and is aware of some suspicious extremely ominous information, regarding a nuclear power plant. After a tour there is a connection between her an employee Isaac (Hanks). Ensnared in a dangerous cover up, she is forced off a bridge in a extremely dramatic drowning scene. She survives but not everyone does...

Such as Sixsmith, who has been murdered. Rey retrieves the letters wrote to Frobisher and finds out about the 'Cloud Atlas music', she is one of few.

My favourite plot line, easily an intense American murder/detective movie on its own. The cutting in and out of other story lines is brilliantly done. Interesting seeing actors play the same role but at extreme of ages. Somehow he keeps the essence of Sixsmith.

4). 2012. Not going to explain the whole plot as it is hilarious and would be spoilt. Failing publisher, Cavendish, needs to get out of town because … (Watch it!) Goes to his Brother (Grant) and his brother’s wife Georgette, realistically played by Ben Whishaw. His tricked into a 'carehome'. Imprisoned by the awful Nurse Noakes (played by Hugo Weaving) hilarity as he tries to escape.

Interesting and comical to see the realistic cross gender acting by Whishaw and the not so realistic (still utterly hilarious) Weaving.

5). 2144, Futuristic Korea. fabricants are slaves who are created to work in a fast-food chain. Doona Bae plays fabricant Somni-451. She is freed in an futuristic laser shooting, Matrix like scene. He saviour teaches her the horrific truth about what really happens to fabricants. He encourages her to be part of a revolution, and one of the ways he inspires her is by showing her a movie of Cavendish’s adventures. Here we get a typical romance set in sci-fi future as saviour Hae-Joo and Somni-451 fall in love. James D’Arcy is the person taking Somni’s confession.

Must have involved a lot of green-screen acting but it's not particularly obvious. Lots of action, jumpy fight scenes.

Quote: “From Womb to tomb we are not our own, we destined to others”
Are lives are so intertwined in everyone else's.

6). 2321. The advanced civilisation has fallen due to over Earth pollution. Although furthest in time we go back to cave-man style culture. Tom Hanks playing a goat herder named Zachry. Halle Berry, is Meronym, part of another civilization that is far more advanced, known as the Prescients. She wants to travel to the top of the Island but the folk are too scared to go. Events of the revolution have been distoreted over time, Sonni is worshipped as a God. Hugo Weaving plays a green skinned devil like voice inside Zachry’s head that taunts him. Very scaring acting, I hope everyone is not too freaked out. Whether everyone survives this final/first/complicated time plot...

Food for thought, how would our Earth turn up after years and years of abuse ..

PHEW! That was long. Something for everyone, covers literally every genre, comedy, sci-fi- romantic, historical, murder etc. 

 

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Jack

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This movie is mostly about reincarnation and the ability for people to become better — or worse — as they move through different life cycles. The birthmark indicates a soul passing through another body, and shows how we’re all connected. And this birthmark isn’t just any birthmark. It’s in the shape of a comet, which indicates something scientific but mystical about the whole process.

^^ Birthmark NOTE: (Copied this part straight from a web-site)