Reviews:Cloverfield

From AJS.COM

Cloverfield is a hybrid between the horror and giant-monster/action genres. Typically, I would expect this to be light on plot and characterization and heavy on explosions and laboriously explained pseudo-technical arm-waving. Nothing could be further from the truth, and that's what made this easily the best giant monster movie in recent memory, and perhaps of all time.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Camera 3 Characters 4 Effects 5 9/11 6 The whole

Plot

The plot is fairly straight-ahead. Without disclosing too much, you have a group of upwardly mobile 20-somethings who are throwing a party in Manhattan when a giant monster attacks New York City. Their attempts to escape (and to deal with other concerns that arise) are the meat of the story, and the first surprise is that the monster isn't really the focus of the movie.

One of my greatest peeves in movies is that we're often force-fed a pat explanation for the events that transpire. In this movie, nothing could be farther from the truth. In the end, you'll have only your speculation and that of the characters to resolve the question of what happened. This is unusual, and I'm sure it put some people off. After all, it's not "how it's done." For my part, I was a bit disappointed at first, but after several conversations with friends, I realized that the movie and the post-movie conversation was richer for the lack of detail.

Camera

As you may know, the movie is shot in first-person through what we're told is a hand-cam discovered in "what used to be called Central Park" at the start of the film. This technique can be deeply annoying when done wrong (inevitable comparisons to Blair Witch are unavoidable), but I found it to be very well done. Not all scenes are unsteady. Only when establishing a scene or when the characters are running for their lives do you get a lot of screen-motion. Other than that, the camera is quite steady (and in fact, I assume that a steady-cam was used for most of the meat of the movie). In so far as the goal was to put the audience into the action, I'd say this worked well. It's not a technique I want to see in every movie, but for a giant monster movie to be first-person was novel enough to be interesting and effective.

Characters

Every character in the movie is at least somewhat interesting. The man behind the camera is probably least-so, but then that helps us not feel too badly about his only appearing a handful of times in brief shots on-camera. The other characters are reasonably well developed with personal stories that go well beyond what we're directly told about, and their actions are clearly informed by their backgrounds, and not simply macho or feminine as such films often devolve into. That's not to say that the characters are all likable or even terribly swift. The nominal male lead is actually not a sympathetic character in some ways, and to some extent, I blame him for every negative consequence that befalls those around him (except for the initial danger, which is the direct result of the appearance of the monster).

Effects

If you're going to Cloverfield for the effects extravaganza, you're going to be sorry. There are effects. You get at least two really good explosions. You get a monster. You get CG and physical gore effects. However, all of these things are muted and do not hold center-stage. There's no Die Hard-like car-flipping stunts. There's no explosions from which our heroes narrowly leap to safety. For the most part, the effects are just there to enhance the story. You may find this shocking in a giant monster movie. I know I did. That's not to say that I'm unhappy, but it certainly made me think about just what a giant monster movie is all about.

9/11

I'm constantly amazed by the reviewers who call out the scenes that are reminiscent of the towers falling on 9/11 as some sort of cheap ploy to exploit the event. The movie doesn't even use those scenes in the advertising, and frankly they're not the focus of the film. Certainly, post-9/11 we have a much more developed sense of how a skyscraper falls, and it's not a shock that when a giant monster goes crashing through Manhattan, we see at least one scene that has similar physics to the scenes recorded by real amateurs on 2001-09-11. However, it never felt like that was the point of the film, or as if the film was attempting to capitalize on the comparison. In fact, most of the film's tense moments have no equivalent in real-life events that I'm aware of. I suppose that if you walked out of the film after a key 9/11-like scene, you could have gotten this impression, and I'm suspicious that perhaps some reviewers did this. If you stay at least until the half-way mark, however, you'll come to the conclusion that this film is about the people that you see through this hand-cam, and not the buildings. There are no politics to this film. The military is involved only in the background. No politicians appear. It's simply about the people on the street and what they do to survive something that's completely outside of their experience.

If you find that to be reminiscent of 9/11, then so be it. I don't think that you can make any real claim, however, that the film attempts to capitalize on those events.

The whole

As a movie, Cloverfield is not a masterpiece, but it's solid and enjoyable. For two hours, you're thrown into a New York transformed by a skyscraper-sized behemoth. When I left the theater I was tired. I felt as if I'd just run the length of Manhattan with horror following 2 steps behind, and it was a rush. I also had hours of conversation ahead of me, speculating with friends about what was what and why it was. All things considered, this is a good thing, and well worth the price of admission.