Worth your Time and Money

Last week I actually saw a movie that was worth watching. You all may have seen it advertised or heard about it. It’s called Cloud Atlas. This film is technically an independent film as the directors The Wachowski’s (The Matrix trilogy) and Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) could not get any Hollywood studio to buy in. It is an extremely ambitious film based on a book of the same name that was considered to be of the “unfilmable” family. It looks pretty damn amazing thanks to the fact that they did manage to get some German financial backing (which is kind of…odd). Essentially it is six stories being told at once that are all connected in some way or another and share common themes of causality, human connectivity and love. All of these stories are pretty drastically different in both tone and setting and a handful of actors play various roles that have them changing race and gender. The stories range from 18^th century period piece, a seventies crime thriller, hardcore sci-fi and upbeat British comedy. The “Atlas” part of the title is certainly fitting.

I would highly recommend that people go and see this movie simply because that it was so hard to get made. And holy hell is it a blast of fresh air. I can guarantee that you won’t see anything quite like it. Go and give it your money. Be forewarned that it is 3 hours long and doesn’t give you any warning as to the fact that it’s telling you six stories at once. It gets right into the thick of it. In all seriousness though, in a time when a movie needs to be a sequel or be about superheroes it’s inspiring to see something so unique and inventive.

The make-up can get pretty bad at times though…asian Hugo Weaving looks more Klingon than Korean.