Review: Cloverfield

We begin with a going away party for Tokyo-bound (Ominous Monster Movie sign, No.1) NY exec Michael Stahl-David, filmed (poorly) by his friend Hud (T.J. Miller), on Stahl-David’s brother’s (Mike Vogel) hand-held camera. An arrival by his ex-girlfriend and her new beau is soon followed by an even bigger disaster- an apparent earthquake. But when the partygoers venture outside, what they find is even more horrific- the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty. Oh, and a giant monster. Can’t forget the giant monster. Or it’s equally nasty offspring, for that matter.

 

Terrible 2008 mixture of “REC”, “The Blair Witch Project”, and “Godzilla”, wants to be an ultra-realistic (well, y’know...), hand-held, monster movie, but falls completely flat thanks mostly to the incompetence of director Matt Reeves, an associate of the film’s producer J.J. Abrams (having directed for Abrams on “Felicity”) This was his feature film debut, and Reeves would later redeem himself somewhat with “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”. Unlike “BWP”, I was never able to take the journey, because the artifice of the whole thing is evident at just about every turn. The actors are too ‘actory’ (and terrible actors at that, very forced and rehearsed- that’s right, rehearsed and they’re still awful!), and most importantly, the attempt at using hand-held photography to make this story seem like it’s really happening, is poorly handled. The actors in “BWP” never really convinced me they were anything more than actors but they, and the film itself, proved convincing enough for me to go along for the ride anyway for 90 minutes, and the shaky-cam nausea seemed less offensive. Because I never for a second bought this scenario (nor the boring-as-hell characters), the filmmaking style seemed somewhat unnecessary, pretentious, and annoying. At least if they dropped the pretension, it wouldn’t be so damn hard to watch. As is, it’s a fake-arse gangster, and I’m shocked it did so well at the box-office.

 

Even though the lighting and framing are clearly more accomplished than in “BWP”, this is precisely the problem. Would an amateur party photographer (the only decent character in the film, he’s amusingly annoying and has the worst social skills since...well, me!) who has unwittingly stumbled upon a disaster scenario be running around and filming the goings on with perfect framing, crisp cinematography, and most astonishingly...using amber filters! What the hell? If it’s not a filter then where’s the source of amber light coming from? And how does this guy (who has never filmed a party before this!) know to perfectly frame each and every important story development? What amateur photographer has that kind of foresight? And why would he take the time to work in a perfectly-framed product placement for Mountain Dew? A cameo by the easily recognisable craggy-faced Chris Mulkey (Who has been in a lot of films and TV shows) is just the final nail in the coffin of this terrible miscalculation. Say what you will about “BWP” (a film I admired more than I enjoyed), but at least it got it’s style right. Hell, even it’s (admittedly annoying) characters were more interesting and likeable than these uber-bland 20-something yuppies.

 

Damn, I had high hopes for this one, a realistic-seeming monster movie seemed like such a great idea for a B-movie, but this is a total botch job (aside from one well-done shaky-cam bit in an underground attack scene shot in night vision). Mind you, at least the shaky-cam style is an effective way for the filmmakers to obscure the (presumably cheap) FX, a smart idea. If it were a straight-up monster flick, it might’ve been unoriginal, but it surely would’ve been fun. The monsters are kinda cool (especially the big one, which looks nothing like any other movie monster I’ve seen, which is as it should be. How can we possibly imagine what monsters or aliens look like? Think about that!), but this sucks. Nice final shot, though. The screenplay is by Drew Goddard (another buddy of Abrams), who eventually rebounded with Ridley Scott’s “The Martian” several years later.

 

Rating: D+