Presents

Cloverfield

Before we get going here, I have to tell you that there will be SPOILERS within this article, so if you're planning on seeing the movie then you might want to skip this until afterward...there, you've been warned.

  Okay, now that you've been warned about spoilers, let me warn you about the actual movie!  From the online hype, to the media exposure, to everything that's really out there about the movie, I bought into it hook, line and sinker.  Sure, I'd heard that the entire movie was in 'shaky cam' and I had heard the comparisons to The Blair Witch Project, but surely J.J. Abrams could produce a movie that was better than all  of that.  Based on Lost alone, I was sure that some of the negative press that I'd heard was just more critics bashing what the masses would surely love..I couldn't have been more wrong!

The movie opens with a governmental warning, the entire movie is government evidence that's not meant to be seen by the public, an interesting concept, I have to admit.  What we get to see are basically home videos of the 'incident'.  The story begins at a going away party that's unexpectedly interrupted by what, at first, seems to be an earthquake, but what we soon discover is something in downtown Manhattan that's wrecking the town.  In a 'shades of 9/11' sequence, we see explosions in downtown throwing fire and debris across the rest of the city, the statue of liberty's head flys through the air and at our hapless videographers, and people are filling the streets trying to find information and help.  As the story unfolds, we see that it's a giant monster that's attacking the city (but there's not nearly enough of the monster and way too much of the party-goers for my liking), we see the military is in action and people are told to head for the Brooklyn Bridge to get off of the island.  When we get to the bridge, it too is attacked and one of our party-goers is killed in the bridge collapse.

From there the movie moves pretty quickly, the man whom the party was being thrown for has to find his true love (who he alienated in the first five minutes of the movie) who has called him begging for help.  As four of the party-goers now back-track against the tide to find her, they also encounter smaller monsters that are being 'shed' off the giant monster.  In a race against time, to find the missing girl and get to a military pick-up point, the poor people are attacked by the small monsters, run time and again, into the giant monster and are told at one point that if they're not off the island by 6am, they'll be killed, the government has authorized the total destruction of Manhattan in the event that all else fails.

Cloverfield is Blair Witch taken up one notch...however, that notch isn't nearly enough to make it entertaining and fun!  What we get is a movie that's entirely shot on hand held camera, a story that's not all that great, and a movie that doesn't deliver on any of it's promise!  Cloverfield is a Godzilla movie told from the perspective of the people running from the giant monster!  We get to see the monster, however briefly, we see that the military is fighting it, but we never know what exactly is going on.  When bitten by the smaller monsters something happens to people, but, whatever happens, takes place only in silhouette and is never fully explained to us.  What the monster is and why it's suddenly appeared in New York is never explained in any way, we hear our helpless runners speculate, but nothing that's definitive or fulfilling.  In the end, Cloverfield is a mess of a movie that doesn't live up to the hype at all, this is a concept that's cool and amazing, executed poorly and badly.  Shaky cam is a great technique, but not for an entire movie!!  I have to admit, the first thing I thought after leaving the theatre is that I wished I had taken my money and seen something else.  So many people are using this technique far better, with far less money (my friend Anthony Spadacini of Fleet Street Films comes to mind first), and for a big budget 'tent pole' movie to be this low budget and bad is totally unacceptable.  I'm giving Cloverfield a mere half cigar, and that's soggy and of bad quality.  If you're thinking that you'd like to see a giant monster movie, check out Godzilla: Final Wars, at least it has a story that leads somewhere and is much more fun than Cloverfield.  So, until next time, when I'll be emailing the producers of Cloverfield and demanding my money and time back, remember that the best movies are bad movies.