Cloud Atlas
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Tagline: Everything Is Connected
The German filmmaker Tom Tykwer clearly enjoys a challenge. A few years ago, he took on the unenviable task of adapting author Patrick Suskind’s best-selling yet well-nigh unfilmable 1985 novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer.
Fast forward to 2012 and Tykwer’s at it again, joining forces with co-writers and directors Lana and Andy Wachowski (formally the Wachowski brothers of The Matrix fame) on Cloud Atlas, British writer David Mitchell’s bestselling book from 2004, which shone a searing light on how one’s actions and consequences can impact and resonate through the past, present and future.
The plot jumps around, from the mid-19th century to a post-apocalyptic future, with a big name cast featuring the likes of Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, who each played several different roles across the six stories. And said stories don’t initially appear to have much, if anything, in common, skipping from a Pacific ocean voyage in 1850 to 20th-century San Francisco to a retirement home in modern-day London, and then forward into a future after something called the “Big Fall”.
Naturally, critical opinion is widely divided. Variety leads the way with a positive notice, stating that the decision to show the half-dozen tales pays off: “Like juggling Ginsu blades, the tricky feat is part stunt, part skill, but undeniably entertaining to witness as half a millennium of world history unfolds, much of it set in centuries still to come.” Less sure is The Daily Telegraph, which concludes that “There’s plenty to argue with, more to scoff at, and some uninitiated viewers may well choose to check out of engagement early. But it’s also a dizzily generous ride, scored with real grandeur, and even its silliest elements are guilty pleasures.” And most definitely in the anti-camp is our own Richard Corliss, who preferred the Wachowski’s poorly received Speed Racer from 2008. “The feeling persists that Tykwer and the Wachowskis made the picture to prove they could. Most viewers are likely to be impressed more by the magnitude of the effort than the magnificence of the effect.”
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: The Making of Cloud Atlas
Fun Size
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Tagline: Some people just can’t handle Halloween.
If Tom Tykwer has often opted to take on tough tasks, the opposite can surely be said of Josh Schwartz, the man who brought us such heavy-hitting pieces of serious drama as The O.C., Chuck and Gossip Girl.
Actually, we’re being slightly mean, and doubt we could create and run a hit TV series at the tender age of 26, as Schwartz did on The O.C. Now, at a still youthful 36, the wunderkind has written and directed his first movie, Fun Size. We’re in the world of the teen comedy as high school senior, Wren (Victoria Justice) is keen to distance herself from her kooky family by going off to college. But just when she’s on the verge of escaping her past, her mother makes her look after younger brother Albert on Halloween. Even worse, Wren loses Albert so reaches out to a motley crew to find young Albert and get on with the rest of her life.
So far, so Adventures in Babysitting, but what do the reviewers think? The Village Voice is fully on board, noting that while the movie “lacks both the glossy finish of his prime-time serials … and the razor-sharpness of the dialogue,” Fun Size is “a smart and emotionally satisfying slice of wish fulfillment, tracing how a threatened family finds harmony.” But Entertainment Weekly takes the opposite approach, asking “who wants to be a poor poor-man’s version of Can’t Hardly Wait?” and concluding that “There remains a huge market for a great Halloween teen comedy, but Fun Size is the disappointing apple that your crazy-haired neighbor gives you instead of candy. Feel free to dump this one in the bushes.”
MORE: Farewell to The O.C.
NewsFeed’s Flicks Pick: On the basis of the book alone, we’re inclined to give Cloud Atlas, despite its potentially messy elements, the benefit of the doubt.