{"id":8864,"date":"2013-02-24T17:43:53","date_gmt":"2013-02-24T17:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=8864"},"modified":"2015-01-28T14:57:54","modified_gmt":"2015-01-28T14:57:54","slug":"film-review-cloud-atlas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=8864","title":{"rendered":"Blogathon 24\/13 Film review: Cloud Atlas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?attachment_id=8865\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-8865\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-8865\" src=\"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/\/Doona-Bae-in-Cloud-Atlas-300x157.jpg\" alt=\"Doona-Bae-in-Cloud-Atlas\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" srcset=\"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Doona-Bae-in-Cloud-Atlas-300x157.jpg 300w, https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Doona-Bae-in-Cloud-Atlas.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>ever one to take a contrary position, and in the face of views from one or two critics&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>I went to watch Cloud Atlas this afternoon, with my expectationometer set to neutral.<\/p>\n<p>My expectations were enormously exceeded.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from some difficult-to-adjust-to editing during the first 15 minutes, Cloud Atlas is a very good film.<\/p>\n<p>It is a behemoth of a story, held together by crisp writing, a very good cast and some beautiful dialogue.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, the dodgy\u00a0prosthetics do let the side down, but the prosthetics are not the story.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, there are loose ends left trailing.<\/p>\n<p>Yes there are minor structural problems.<\/p>\n<p>However, none of these things are the story.<\/p>\n<p>The story is a tale, told over six distinct segments, of how we interact with each other &#8211; through a number of different lifetimes.<\/p>\n<p>The moral basis is a combination of zen\/karma that sits easily in my world, though it will drive the religious extremists nuts.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Hanks does a very nice job in all of his parts (but there should be a warning triangle around his &#8211; almost &#8211; Scottish accent).<\/p>\n<p>Hugh Grant plays the Nuclear Boss like Hugh Grant but, surprisingly, he plays his other parts with considerably more flair.<\/p>\n<p>Halle Berry performs well throughout.<\/p>\n<p>But the film-stealer is the performance from the South Korean actress,\u00a0Bae Doona, in her role as\u00a0Sonmi~451.<\/p>\n<p>It is impossible &#8211; for me, at least &#8211; to ignore the &#8216;love across the ages&#8217; theme, and for those that believe in love at first sight, this thread is heartwarming.<\/p>\n<p>I was delighted by Cloud Atlas.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, it is a long film but it does not *seem* long.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, this is one of the best pieces of all-round entertainment that I have had the pleasure of watching in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>I wouldn&#8217;t want to watch it on a television, though. I think this film, like the story, is too big for the smaller screen (no matter how big ones plasma screen night be).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cloud Atlas:\u00a07.5\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; ever one to take a contrary position, and in the face of views from one or two critics&#8230; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; I went<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}