Cloud Atlas (2012)

Cloud Atlas (2012)

Directors: The Wachowskis

Cast: Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, Keith David, James D’Arcy, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant

Another film to add to the “films that shouldn’t have flopped” file. I’m actually kind of sad that I never got around to watching this one until now, but I am glad I finally got to watch it because I was missing out on an excellent, profound film. Cloud Atlas comes to us from three directors, Andy and Lana Wachowski (the two siblings behind The Matrix trilogy) and Tom Tykwer, the director behind the gruesome and beautiful Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006). Tykwer also directed the ultra stylized Run Lola Run (1998). Why three directors you might ask? Well, this film is extremely complex; it involves various stories occurring in different timelines. It’s a story that spans throughout many decades, past, present and future. The Wachowski’s directing this one makes sense because they are used to directing complex films with a lot of special effects and having Tom Tykwer involved makes sense as well, his Run Lola Run was all about how our smallest actions can profoundly affect other people’s lives, which is essentially what Cloud Atlas is all about.

I’ m not going to attempt to explain or mention the premise for each of the story lines here because that would make for a convoluted review, instead, I’ll present you guys with the films themes in a nutshell. This is a story about people fighting for injustices throughout history. In each of the story lines, an atrocity is being committed against humanity, be it through racism, bigotry or plain and simple evil. In each of the story lines, characters are fighting against said injustices. The most interesting aspect of the whole film is how all the characters are connected, as if each one of them had come back through reincarnation to continue fighting evil in their new life or to evolve. There’s this prevailing idea that we evolve through time; in one life a character might be a scoundrel, but in the next he has learned his lesson and has evolved into a kind hearted individual. At the center of it all is the idea that truth, love and goodness must prevail and that we cannot let evil slip through the cracks.  

I remember when this film was first released; it got a lot of “worst of the year” reviews. I cannot understand why; It’s a beautiful film with something important to say. Fight the injustice, human rights need to be respected, we all need our dignity and our freedom to be who we want to be in this world. But I guess movies with a good message aren’t as popular as nonsensical action movies and yet, here’s the thing, Cloud Atlas proves to be an entertaining film as well. It’s not preachy, or boring, in fact, it has some kick ass action in it! In this way, it reminded me of a recent favorite of mine, Brad Bird’s Tomorrowland (2015), which while giving a valid, positive message to the masses still managed to be wildly entertaining and include incredible visual effects. Same thing with Cloud Atlas, a poignant film that got lost in the shuffle.  Some will undoubtedly find it a “messy” story, but in all honesty, if you have a brain in your head and stick with the story all the way to the end, you will “get it”, you will see that there is a cohesiveness to the tale, you will see that it will all make sense in the end. You will see the inter-connectivity between the stories and you will see that they all relate to the message of fighting the injustices in our society. You will see that it’s all about us, fighting for our rights to be free, to live our lives in spite of the fact that there are forces out there that would have it otherwise. 

   

Production wise, it must have been a daunting task to make this movie. Actors recount how one day they’d be dressed as a pirate, the next day as a doctor, the next day as someone from the future, I have to say it all worked out in the end, which is what matters. The Wachowski’s have been making unsuccessful movies for some time now, Speed Racer (2008), Cloud Atlas (2012) and most recently Jupiter Ascending (2015), which makes me wonder if we’ll see a film from them again. If I know how Hollywood works, we probably won’t. Still, if you haven’t given Cloud Atlas a chance, then maybe you should. It’s got a formidable cast composed of Tom Hanks, Halley Berry, Susan Sarandon, Hugo Weaving, Keith David, I mean it just goes on and on and each actor plays various characters throughout time, it’s interesting to see them portraying all these different characters. Bottom line is, you probably missed out on this one when it originally released (like me), but you should give it a shot, the Wachowski’s made a good one and most of the world missed it.  

Rating: 4 out of 5    

The Quick and the Dead (1995)

Title: The Quick and the Dead (1995)

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lance Henriksen, Keith David, Tobin Bell, Gary Sinise

Review:

The Quick and the Dead isn’t one of those films that purely emerged from the mind and imagination of director Sam Raimi. It wasn’t like Evil Dead (1981) or Darkman (1990) both of which were films born and bred in Sam Raimi’s brain. Nope, on The Quick and the Dead Sam Raimi was a director for hire. He was personally chosen by Sharon Stone herself for this film because she loved what he did on Army of Darkness (1993). So here was Sam Raimi, coming out of the moderate success of Army of Darkness, doing his first “director for hire” picture. How did it go?

An awesome cast makes this an awesome western!

The Quick and the Dead centers around a shoot out contest that takes place in the Western town of Redemption. This contest attracts a varied group of gunmen from all over the Old West. The twist comes when we find out that one of these gunmen is actually a gun woman who goes by the name of ‘Lady’. She signs up for the contest but doesn’t reveal the true nature of her plans: exacting sweet revenge on the man who was responsible for the death of her father! It just so happens that this man is the towns mayor; an abusive politician named Herod who squeezes tons of tax money from peoples pockets and lives a life of luxury at their expense. Will she ever muster up the courage needed to go up against Herod and his men? Will she ever get the revenge that she came for?

One of the things that makes The Quick and the Dead special is the fact that it has a female lead in the role; normally western films have a male lead in them. I figure studios think females don’t really give a damn about cowboy movies so why make one with a female lead? But this one was just a little different. It has an ass kicking female playing the lead character in the form of Sharon Stone, who's one tough cookie on this movie. Though many of the men in Redemption enlists in the contest, somebody protests saying that ladies shouldn’t be allowed to enter. Herod, the towns mayor played by a scene stealing Gene Hackman says “we don’t have nothing against ladies entering the contest, it’s just that ladies can’t shoot for shit!” All the men in the room laugh when he says this. It's right then and there that , and Lady proceeds to show them what she’s made off by shooting her gun faster and quicker then all of them thought she could. So this movie is different that way. Sharon Stone carries the whole film on her shoulders. She’s the ‘Blondie’ of this film. She smokes a thin cigar, says very little and answers almost everything in two syllables. To her credit I will say that she was appropriately bad ass in this film, equal parts sexy and tough.

Sadly, this film was a complete bomb at the box office and an abysmal failure for Sam Raimi who started to doubt his abilities as a director. “I felt like I was a dinasour. That I couldn’t change with each film” But Im guessing that wasn’t the case. Raimi remains a great stylist in my book, he’s kind of lost touch with that in his recent films (Spider Man 3 and Drag Me to Hell) but Im hopeful that he still has a couple of great films in him. The failure of this film can be attributed to a common ailment in action films: having a female in the lead in a genre whose target audience is mostly males. I don’t get this because, shouldn’t guys be happy to get a western with an incredibly beautiful actress in the lead role? But whatever, films like Supergirl (1984), Red Sonja (1985), Barb Wire (1996), Elektra (2005), Aeon Flux (2005), Catwoman (2004) and Ultraviolet (2006), with very rare exceptions, continue to bomb at the box office. But of course, this could have to do something with the fact that these movies are pretty bad to begin with. I guess the real question would be why doesn’t Hollywood make better films with female heroes in them? You make a good action film, with a female lead and it will be a hit just as much as the ones with male leads in them. Look at Salt (2010) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), two examples of successful action films with a female playing the lead.

Sam Raimis stylish direction remains a major asset of this film

But forget that noise; Sharon Stone in The Quick and the Dead was bad ass. This film not finding its audience was a real tragedy because, not only is this film a great western, it’s also one of Sam Raimi’s best films. At least in my book it is. When Sharon Stone (one of the films producers) chose Raimi as the director for this project, she thought that Raimi showed promise in Army of Darkness and that The Quick and the Dead was going to be the film where he could really come full circle and fine tune his directorial skills, which he achieved wonderfully as far as Im concerned. The film is filled with many signature Sam Raimi camera moves. The lightning flash zoom in, quick camera moves and odd angles make this one a stylish western. Raimi gives it his own distinctive style by placing the camera in extremely interesting places. Like for example when characters load their guns, the camera is actually on the gun itself! In one scene a gunsman shoots his gun and the camera becomes the bullet…little things like that let you know that yes, you are watching a Sam Raimi film. That, plus it’s got the word ‘Dead’ in the title.

Aside from Raimi’s camera play, we also get memorable heroes and villains and a great story to go with them. The contests attracts all sorts of gunslingers to Redemption, each one of them a unique character. For example, Lance Henriksen plays a gunslinger named Ace, because he is renowned for being so great. He likes to do tricks with his pack of cards, which are all aces. We get another gunslinger who’s a gun for hire, another one is a ruthless ex-con, another one is a young kid, and so forth. Behind the characters lays a story of connected lives. They all live under the oppressive reign of Herod, the films villain played by the one and only Gene Hackman who eats up the screen whenever he appears. There’s this awesome scene in wich Sharon Stone is planning on shooting Herod down, but she is so intimidated by the words he speaks that she doesn’t even dare pull the trigger! Now that’s what I call a villain! On top of this, every other character on this film is played by a recognizable actor before they got famous. Russell Crowe is here playing a Priest who’s looking for redemption. He had an ugly past as a gunslinger and is looking to make his peace with God by becoming a priest. Leo DiCaprio plays ‘The Kid’ who also happens to be the son of Herod, the villain. Even Jigsaw himself is here playing a gunslinger who’s looking to kill ‘Lady’. All in all, this film has a solid cast! So much so, that if this film had been made today, with the exact same cast, it would have cost a hell of a lot more money then what it cost back in those days when a lot of these actors were virtual unknowns.

So let’s see, the cinematography is excellent, the music is top notch, the whole cast really makes the whole thing worthwhile, what’s not to like in this picture? Nothing! It is a great homage to Sergio Leone films and westerns in general. We have the lead without a name; we get the revenge that drives the plot of the film. We even get the helpless towns folk who can’t fight for themselves, so they end up looking for the right gunslinger to save them from the oppressive villain. And we got the showdowns at noon. Basically, everything and anything you could ever want to see in a western. This is a highly underrated Sam Raimi film in desperate need of some love and attention!

Rating: 5 out of 5