Synopsis
Based on the novel by David Mitchell (not considered filmable). There are several stories: the redemption of a 19th century slaver, 1930s Ben Whishaw in an artistic relationship with composer Jim Broadbent, Halle Berry taking on power companies in 1973, an Irish hack writer going after publisher Jim Broadbent who hides in a nursing home and rebels against it, a race of cyber slaves in 22nd century Korea. Tom Hanks playing Zachry speaking pidgin English and fighting prehistoric tribesmen as he tries to discover human destiny on a mountain…
Review
There are leaps from era to era where we also get the leading actors playing different roles. This can be pretty distracting, so you spend a lot of time wondering who is behind the prosthetic gimmickry. Hugh Grant as a Korean? Tom Hanks as a thuggish Irish pulp writer? Ben Wishaw as a 1973 record seller? Hugo Weaving as a scary nurse Ratchet? It’s all a bit of a lark so it undermines the film’s already pretentious message about the triumph of the human spirit against the control of would be totalitarians (as in Pullman’s Golden Compass). I haven’t yet read the book, no doubt it’s better than this Twilight Zone romp which though good to look at, is no sci-fi classic. The Wachowskis have made this film, they were responsible for The Matrix and it shows. This film is littered with cod philosophy, the beer mat Buddhist nostrums beloved of middle brow coffee table sci-fi. It toys with cosmic themes like other films but usually does this in a clunking Dr Who manner. For me, the only really good episode is Jim Broadbent as the book publisher escaping Tom Hanks’ vengeful Irish hack. Broadbent takes refuge in a nursing home and rebels against it, a sort of geriatric One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest set in Scotland. It’s pure slapstick, Carry on Broadbent. The 1930s composer sequence is like a kitsch take on the relationship between the composer Delius and his amanuensis Eric Ferby. Halle Berry tries to do a Jane Fonda in The China Syndrome but the story looks increasingly like a discarded Starsky and Hutch episode with a nod to Day of the Condor. The Korean sequence is more like a Blade Runner set in a Bond stunt as it avoids the complicated problems associated with artificial intelligence that Isaac Asimov deals with The far future episode looks like Zardoz as done by Danny Boyle. Hanks is stalked by a green bogeyman who is more vaudeville than sinister.
jkinsleyfilm 