Friday, October 26, 2012

'Cloud Atlas' Shrugged


I am proud to boast that I have never used hallucinogenic drugs. However, after enduring the 2 hour and 52 minutes of a crazy confused mess of a movie, we felt like we had just been on a 'bad trip,' man. Cloud Atlas, with a star-studded cast that includes Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, will certainly drift away from your local multiplex, silently amidst mega-box office failure. Based on a popular novel penned by British author, David Mitchell, this film was greatly anticipated by movie goers. It was co-directed by Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski brothers (oops, wait a sec, it is now the brother and sister Wachowski. Larry is now Lana having had a sex change operation a few years ago. No, I'm not kidding), the partnership just didn't work. The Wachowski's "Matrix" films were awesome, but not even Neo could have saved this flop, and I don't care if he was The One. Each of the actors in the film play multiple characters across different stories and time periods. The make-up was impressive, quite often I couldn't spot the star. The movie consists of six nested stories that take the viewer from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or observed) by the main character in the next. All stories but the last are interrupted at some moment, and after the sixth story concludes at the center of the movie, the story "goes back" in time, "closing" each story as the movie progresses, but regresses chronologically in which the action takes place. There is a postscript at the end of the film with one of the Tom Hanks characters looking up in the sky at earth. Say what?? The hallmark of all great films is the story and this screenplay was just way too confusing. I spent most of my energy trying to figure out what was going, instead of just enjoying the film. I also had one major gripe: In the South Pacific story, the pacific islanders are all played by African American actors posing as Maori's! Now, I don't have anything against African American actors, but for heck's sake, couldn't the producers have signed some actual Polynesians for these roles? Gimme a break. DON'T GO SEE THIS MOVIE! This monumental miscasting catastrophe was as bad as casting Burt Lancaster as the native American athlete, Jim Thorpe, in the 1951 film, Jim Thorpe: All-American. If you want a good laugh, rent that movie. Jim Thorpe with a Brooklyn accent is a back-slapping hoot.

On a positive note, 'Argo,' starring and directed by Ben Affleck is a MUST SEE!


See you at the movies!!!

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