Cloud Atlas

[Collin]

The movie's certainly polarizing. The connections between some of the parts are definitely subtle, and certain sections can get a tad cheesy. Honestly though, the more I thought about the film, the more I fell in love with it. The fact that each story affects another one somewhere in time is brilliant, like how Sun-mi in the future watch the re-enactment of the old man escaping from the nursing home influences them to escape. I also really loved Hugo Weavings' speech at the end in the earliest segment, the whole "There's a natural order to this world," great stuff. I can respect someone disliking it, because it is a bit messy at times, but personally I just got a lot out of this film and plan on seeing it again.

[Bluegirl]

So I just saw the movie and I really liked it. I was a little nervous because people kept bringing up The Tree of Life and I did not like that movie, but people also mentioned The Fountain which I did like.

The movie was a lot less abstract then I thought it would be. The individual stories were straight forward and the theme was comprehensive, which is helpful with all the jumping around with the stories. The jumping around was confusing at first but once you identify each story line it was easy to understand (I think I might have lost more detail in the beginning then in the end when I was use to it).

My problem is that the connections did not feel that strong. You see the parts of one story that are in another. You see the birth mark. The monologues all emphasized the same ideas. I liked that the climax of many of the stories coincided (even though that is when the jumping around happens the most). But it felt less like stories that were connected and more like stories that they were trying to tell you are connected so look here is a birthmark, look she is reading the letters. There was something missing, like if they would have pushed it more or tightened the story telling it would have all come together more naturally. But the individual stories were all very entertaining and interesting so even as a collection of stories I really liked it. Someone mentioned it before and I will agree, I makeup was terrible. It was helpful to keep track of the actors, but I doubt the intention was for everyone to look like themselves with weird eye makeup.

[sentient02970]

I really liked it and I had only got through about the first 1/3 of the book before seeing it. The way they thread the stories in the film seemed to hit better than the book could.

[Alexandros]

I won't say I didn't enjoy it, but it was a bit of a mess. 3 hours went by with no problem sure but, in the end, it all seemed way too elaborate, not in the sense of being difficult to understand, but rather in the sense of being overzealous with all the juggling between stories, trying to make a point. I think they could probably cut one or two of the stories without hurting the overarching theme. I detected two major themes by the way: If I understand correctly, one was "The weak are meat and the strong do eat", but love, friendship and compassion is always there to fight back and the other was that the choices we make and the stories we create through these choices have an effect in the future. Right?

I am interested in checking out the book though, I'd like to see how the ideas are managed there.

[Rabbit]

my favorite movie of the year.