Trailer of the Week – CLOUD ATLAS (Extended Trailer)

Teri is here wth a new feature, Trailer of the Week is a post to reflect on the best trailer released from the previous week, this week Cloud Atlas

Anticipation Level: (out of 5) 4

Trailer score: (out of 5) 4

The problem with extended trailers is that it can feel like I’ve just seen the entire film in five minutes – but if Cloud Atlas the film is anything like Cloud Atlas the book, it should be approximately one hundred hours long, so there’s not much risk in that being an issue.

In all seriousness, Cloud Atlas, written in 2004 by British author David Mitchell, is a fantastic piece of work that should in almost every way be very difficult to adapt perfectly. Multiple storylines aside, it’s bold and literary – so it will be interesting to see how Tykwer and the Wachowskis handle it.

The trailer, clocking in at just under six minutes, begins with the old and at sea. A young, dying sailor is penning his final days in a series of letters, which are to be discovered some years later by a rather dapper looking Ben Whishaw, and again much later by Halle Berry, who when prodded about them declares, “Why do we keep making the same mistakes?”

Cloud Atlas, as we are about to discover – is about how lives impact lives, death and mortality, time and the human spirit. You will be bombarded with fantastical – and fantastic – imagery, a lot of tears, space travel, tribal jungles, clinical futuristic worlds, bright cityscapes and mundane apartment buildings. And a large cast – oh my, what a cast! Tom Hanks (get the hankies out), Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Zhou Xan, Susan Sarandon and… wait, is that really Hugh Grant

It’s a hell of a lot to take in, even in six minutes, but instead of dragging on I felt like it sucked me in. My cynicism melted away quickly and now I’m thinking this film might not only just work, but it could be brilliant, too. The Matrix sequels did not exactly fill me with joy (quite the opposite), but Tykwer’s Run Lola Run and Perfume are each in themselves stunning, poetic pieces of cinema – the partnership of this trio of directors could be a magic formula.

About The Author – Teri Williams

Teri is a former film student from Edinburgh and currently works in book publishing in London. She is a fan of bad taste films, horror, fantasy, science fiction and vintage teen comedy and has been described by her friends as a “proper nerd” and a human imdb. She can be found speaking nonsense under the twitter name @msenidcoleslaw and scribbling similar nonsense on her blog Enid’s Revenge

Did you enjoy this trailer? What are your thoughts on the film? Comment below…