Well, it’s finally here kiddies. Months of anticipation, meted out through a now infamous viral campaign, and what do we have to show for it? A big fucking monster movie. That’s pretty much exactly what I wanted. Were all of our questions answered? No. Like, what the bleeding hell is Slusho, and why should I give a shit? If you followed the viral marketing at all you are no doubt all too familiar with Slusho. Give it up, it’s nothing but a t-shirt. That’s all it has to do with the movie, some tool in a Slusho t-shirt for 2 seconds. I’m very glad I never wasted my time following the “clues” on all the random viral sites. Now that all that nasty viral talk is out of the way, I can get onto the actual movie.
Between a gigantic monster and heavy artillery, one place you do not want to be.
What happens when a catastrophe of Godzilla proportions hits a “real world” New York city? Director Matt Reeves takes us on a shoddy runaway mine-cart of a ride and tries to show us. What we get for our money is real destruction, real violence and real victims. There are no buildings blowing up with a zero casualty rate. We feel very clearly that people are dying, left and right, and there is nothing anyone can do about it - but run. I made a note to myself before going in not to dwell on the camera work, well that is impossible. The whole story is told through the camera work, moreso I think than the actors. Reeves clearly wanted this to be an intimate experience so he went the “Blair Witch” meets “Godzilla” route. I think it was a great idea and it paid off. We get the experience of a monster movie, not a big flashy F/X extravaganza that feels like a bunch of people running from a tennis ball on a stick. That’s not to say we don’t get special effects, we do, and plenty of them. The monster makes plenty of appearances, and he gets his close-ups in. But more importantly we get to see what it would look like and feel like if we were the hopeless souls stuck in this nightmare. A word of caution however, if you have any issues with motion sickness you might want to sit this one out, or hit the Dramamine. I was getting a little queasy a few times and I have a stomach of steel. This style did enable them to get some crazy, original and effective camera angles and techniques though. The night vision scene was one of my favorite parts of the film.
Rob (Michael Stahl-David) is moving to Japan. His friends throw him a going away party and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the same night this Beasty Behemoth decides to make his presence known. Since Rob’s best friend, Hud (T.J. Miller), was video taping the party he decides to bring the camera with him and document the event as they try to escape from New York. (Snake Plissken wouldn’t have ran from that thing.) Throw in an odd love story between Rob and his friend Beth (Odette Yustman). Basically, they’ve known each other forever, they eventually have sex, Rob is a prick and doesn’t call her for a month because he is moving to Japan. After the attack Rob gets a call from her on his cell phone that she is trapped in her apartment and seriously hurt. So now, rather than getting the hell off the island Rob has Hud and a couple of ladies trekking across Manhattan with him to find Beth. Also, the videotape that they are filming the carnage on was the one that Rob and Beth recorded their perfect “day after” date on, so those images keep cutting in and out through the film. Really, I could have done without the love story. Rob acted like an ass to her so I didn’t care about them as a couple. It did give the characters a good reason to traverse the city under the insanity of this attack, but that was it. I just never felt it from them. Of all the actors in the film the only one that really stood out at all for me was T.J. Miller. Since he is the one filming we hardly ever even see him, but his commentary kept things moving along and gave us laughs at just the right moments. Even without seeing his face he felt more human and real than anyone else to me.
We’ve been going about this all wrong. This Cloverfield monster is okay. He’s a sailor, he’s in New York, we get this guy laid we won’t have any trouble.
So we’ve got our crew going all over Manhattan, from the subway tunnels to skyscraper rooftops in one harrowing ordeal after the other. But what about the monster? Does he deliver? I certainly thought so. Don’t expect a ton of grand shots of a towering beast trampling triumphantly through the city. This is not that kind of movie. He seems more out of place than evil. He clearly doesn’t belong here, and he really isn’t too crazy about all these things blowing up on him. And can you blame him? We see him (or maybe her, but for our purposes here him) plenty, but it’s not shot like a typical monster movie. I’m not going to go into great detail here about how he looks. See it for yourself. I liked it, it was somehow both unique and familiar. He also has some pets (well, probably parasites, but who are we to speculate on their relationship?) in the form of some wicked-ass demon-crab-scarab-dog things that are pretty scary themselves. The whole film is done strictly from the perspective of the people we are following. We know only what they know, and they don’t know shit. We never learn where the monster came from, what it is or… well, you’ll just have to see it.
It’s not a perfect movie, the characters didn’t do much for me. The thought of a guy being able to film all of this while surely losing control of his bodily functions was a bit of a stretch for me. One character in particular suffers a near fatal injury and yet makes what can only be described as a miraculous recovery in no time. I thought it started rather slow. We get it, people love him, it’s a party, gimme some chaos already! The camera work is tough to stomach at times. But the Big Ol’ Monster made up for all of that, and the action scenes were quick, intense and came at a steady pace throughout. I really enjoyed the lack of explanation as well. Most movies over explain things these days, taking all of the fun and fantasy out of it. Cloverfield just lets us enjoy the mayhem without having to analyze it. All in all, worth the price of admission for anyone looking for an exciting way to spend the evening.
RATING: 7.5/10
I told her to take the Dramamine.
Written by: Gillman on Fri, Jan 18, 2008