Cloud Atlas

    (clears throat) WHAT THE %$#@ DID I JUST WATCH?! I consider myself somewhat of a movie buff and I can't think of a single movie more epic than this one. It's like taking Blade Runner, Brave Heart, The Amistad, the Titanic, The Butterfly Effect, Walk the Line and Lethal Weapon and combining them all into nearly 3 hours of brilliance. Top this all off with three dimensional characters that must at one point or another confront their flaws due to the infinite continuity of the story and you get one of the better movies I've seen so far this year. During the first 20 minutes I was convinced that I had come in half way through the movie. The characters and story lines were flying by so fast that it was impossible to keep up with what was happening, however the individual story lines move slowly enough and connect with each other so effortlessly that by the end of the movie it is truly hard to be lost (even if you're watching the boot-legged version and can't understand a word future Tom Hanks and Halle Berry say). The acting in this movie is superb as well. Tom Hanks, Halle Berry and Jim Broadbent all put in above average performances. Jim Sturgess, the actor who played the main character in 21 and a someone I knew very little about before this movie, was so convincing in his different character roles throughout the movie that I found myself wondering if it was the same person at all.
     The movie portrays the concepts of Dharma, Karma, and reincarnation in a complicated yet easy to follow way. The story follows the sixmain characters through the past present and future. It shows how these people's Dharma are connected and how they interact through out history. The idea of Karma is summarized by the quote "by each crime and each crime we birth our future". The characters are shown to commit either acts of kindness of crime in their past lives and this all culminates toward their role in the inevitable future. The former slave owner is now an emperor, the abolitionist a revolutionary and the devoted wife a martyr clone. The idea of changing Dharma is also addressed in the movie.
     Tom Hanks was an extortionist in the past and is a chemist working for a corrupt oil company in the present. However when Halle Berry wanders into his office looking for proof that the oil company is behind planed decay of a nuclear powerplant he assists her in her quest. After helping her he says "yesterday I never would have believed what I did today. I feel like something important has happened to me." He goes on to be assassinated by the oil company, however in the future him and his daughter are the only ones in their village not murdered and he has approximately 50 children with Halle Berry.... sweet deal if you ask me.
    Reincarnation is portrayed as very empirical. The ideas and qualities that a person develops in a past life accumulate so that in the future you become the paradigm of your most abundant qualities, slave owner becomes evil emperor, abolitionist becomes the leader of the revolution, investigative journalist becomes investigative secret agent. The really interesting character is Tom Hanks. He was a coward in his past life and he is still a coward in the future. However by confronting his fatal flaw which manifests itself in the form of a monster eerily similar to Freddy Kruger, Tom Hanks saves himself and his daughter from murder and ultimately finds happiness.
    Cloud Atlas was a very good movie with complicated themes and deep character development, however there is a certain something keeping it from being a great movie. It's difficult to put into words however the mood of the movie never seems to capture that same feeling you get when you watch the StarWars or God Fathers of the world. Maybe it was due to the piece meal telling of the overall story or maybe it was due to the fury at which the stories sometimes fly at you. Whatever it was it was minuscule, because Cloud Atlas is one of the best movies I have seen all year. It is a very powerful, very intelligent, very well made movie it's just not great.