Cloud Atlas.

[fezident]

Holy shit did I hate this movie.
I walked out after about two hours.

I can only assume that there was some kinda big, overwrought, elaborate plot device that somehow tied all the multi-plots together... but that wouldn't have mattered to me, as I couldn't really follow the individual plot of each storyline... therefore... tying them together would not have meant jack shit to me.

I give this movie the lowest possible score. It's a collection of scenes and shots, and didn't feel like a "movie" to me at all. It felt like film school.

The "10 minute standing ovation" this film received at TTFF remains a mystery to me. At this point, I wonder if that's simply bullshit PR.

F.

[OGC]

I'm currently reading the book. I can't imagine how they are gonna make it into a sensible movie.

[cougarjake13]

trailers looked decent

[fezident]

The trailers definitely DID make the movie seem interesting. Palatable, even.

I'm anxious to hear from people who love this movie. I'm anxious to hear WHY. To hear how they were able to make sense of it all.

This movie, in my opinion, is wildly flawed.
The narrative, such as it is, is hard to follow. But that is by design. The (three!) directors of this film are very obviously trying to reinvent the storytelling (and movie going) experience. They are trying to throw away all the established standards and preconceived notions of "what is a movie?" in much the same way that Queen, for example, used "Bohemian Rhapsody" to reinvent "what is a hit single?".
I get it.
The creative team behind this film is trying to challenge us. Fine.


But where this movie fails is in it's ability to simply tell stories.
The audience has to work very hard to make sense of any one of the storylines that are introduced. Many scenes contain the same actors that appear in other scenes, but only occasionally are those actors playing the same character. Often... they are different characters. But only sometimes. And sometimes... those characters have an effect on each others. But other times.... not. Sometimes, the events of one timeline would have something to do with another timeline. Other times... not.
Nothing is defined. Not clearly anyway. And therein lays the problems I had with the movie.

There are scenes that, seemingly, have no place in any narrative. (example: shots in glorious slow-motion of fine china exloding & falling from the ceiling & being smashed)


I would like to ask those that loved this film:
Did you understand this movie.... or did you simply like the tone & look? Did you connect with the stories & characters??!

[booster11373]

Richard Kelly bad?

[thepaulo]

I liked it....maybe even a lot but it is a challenge. A little movie called Intolerance invented this kind of story telling but this took it to a radical degree.
It is well worth the money for a ticket. It delivers more bang for the buck than any movie this year...but don't go if you are not open to something new.
That said, my biggest problem was with the future woods dwellers and their language...that was harder to deal with than the crazy cross cutting.

[Pitdoc]

I think its a movie you need to see a few times before you get it all.

Of course, some segments better than other , but you have to give them something for making it TOO complicated than 99% of the crap out there.

Some of the timelines are beautiful though ( 1936, 2144)

Sometimes questionable makeup ,and they obviously didnt have to put certain actors in EVERY timeline.

Still not near my best of the year; That would be Beasts of the Southern Wild

[fezident]

I think its a movie you need to see a few times before you get it all.

Of course, some segments better than other , but you have to give them something for making it TOO complicated than 99% of the crap out there.

Some of the timelines are beautiful though ( 1936, 2144)

Sometimes questionable makeup ,and they obviously didnt have to put certain actors in EVERY timeline.

Still not near my best of the year; That would be Beasts of the Southern Wild

Almost none of what you wrote is complimentary, and yet... it almost your favorite movie of the year?? Strange.

[Pitdoc]

Almost none of what you wrote is complimentary, and yet... it almost your favorite movie of the year?? Strange.

I'm saying it'll make my top 10, mostly in part for being brazen enough to do something different in a media that hasnt been that innovative in the last few years . Not that many action/drama ensembles that deal with reincarnation. Of course,it might get knocked off by the winter movies (Lincoln,Flight.Django,Zero Dark Thirty)

[realmenhatelife]

I didn't love it but I did like it. But like Speed Racer I liked it more for how uncompromising it was with the story then for the actual narrative itself.

On an overwrought plot device, no, actually they keep it really loose. You can come away from the movie with as much or as little as you put into it. And you're never going to get a revelatory thought, the thought to get is basically we're all connected so be nice to eachother. I think you're supposed to take away from the china smashing scene that dissonant chaos can create beauty, which is something frobisher says in his letter in the voice over. Incidentally the Frobisher story is even wackier in the book, and Frobisher is a giant piece of shit.

I liked how narratively challenging the movie was. Having characters play against gender and race, having characters play varying degrees of ambivilance, villiany and heroics. You cant say Oh, tom hanks, that means this character is the good guy.

It was the first time in a long time that gore and death actually had any resonance to me in a movie.

It's a wacky wacky mess which I admired.

I might have toned down the dialogue in the big island segments, it was hard enough to read and understand so hearing it was really tough.