Six segments of CLOUD ATLAS

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

(And as the total film is only roughly 33 percent sci-fi in nature, I'm electing to place this thread in General Media/Movies).

Having seen CLOUD ATLAS last weekend, without yet reading the book, I thought it got to an excellent start and mostly maintained its quality level for perhaps two of its three hours. Reading reviews in advance, I knew most of the actors would be playing up to six different roles, often skewing against racial and sexual boundaries. So my confusion level was possibly less than others. Going in totally cold without knowing what to expect may not be the wisest option.

Still, the third hour seemed to climax multiple times. You often assumed certain characters were leaving the film, though just about everyone came back for extra climaxes or additional scenes. This made the film feel more than its three hours. Ambitious as it was, I feel some segments were more noteworthy than others. Each of the six major segments had one main character. The Jim Broadbent 2012 sequences were fairly entertaining, but seemed to continue into unnecessary extras. To me, the two most successful pieces were the 1973 Halle Berry thriller plotline, with the fabricant sci-fi segments a close second.

I noticed most segments had a connective tissue of some sort, but if there was a connection between the 19th century Jim Sturgess ship segments and the 1930s drama, I'm afraid it slipped by me.

For those of you who have also seen it, what say you?

 

[tomalak301]

Here's what I said in the Movies seen in 2012 thread, when I went to see the movie this weekend:

I'm not entirely sure how to talk about this movie because for the most part, I didn't entirely like it. The only reason I gave it a C was because it's a movie that felt really original in terms of how it was shot and the ambitiousness of it all. It's more "I understand the Wachowski's took a risk, and while it might not have worked to full success, I wish more movie makers were like this".

I think my main problem with the movie is if you take the Matrix phlysiophical story and multipy that by like 10, that's what Cloud Atlas was. I understand they were trying to talk about reincarnation and how life is connected, but I think the only connection I made was the very first part of the credits when you're seeing the actors and the various roles that they played. Another issue I had is I'm probably not going to see this movie again because it was long, and I was fidgeting a lot through it. I'm not sure if there is a way to tell this story but shorten the length, but there were things in this movie that were hard to follow. For example, all the stuff in the scenes taking place after the fall, that really took me out of the movie. Maybe there should have been subtitles because I couldn't understand what Hanks and Berry were saying, but I understood them in their other scenes.

Overall though, I applaud the Wachowski's for adapting this story to film (I've never read the book), even if there were flaws to it all.

 

[CaptainCanada]

I noticed most segments had a connective tissue of some sort, but if there was a connection between the 19th century Jim Sturgess ship segments and the 1930s drama, I'm afraid it slipped by me.

Frobisher was reading a collection of Ewing's published diaries of his voyage.