Cloverfield
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Movie Reviews of Cloverfield
Movie Review: Godzilla on Steroids
Summary: 5 Stars
When reviewing Cloverfield obvious comparisons to movies like Godzilla are easy to make, but this film is so much more then a simple monster bash. Cloverfield is a wild mix of Godzilla like monster fun, blended with The Blair Witch Project camera style and Jaws (30th Anniversary Edition) like suspense all blended together to make one of the most perfect monster/disaster/horror films of the modern day.
First off lets give some credit to the incredible job the producers did marketing this film. For all the months leading up to its release potential viewer's searched the internet for clews as to what this film may be about, all to no avail. No movie I've ever seen has been surrounded by so much mystery. What is it really about? Is it a giant monster? Aliens? Government tests? What? You really have to see it (or read reviews on Amazon) to find out.
The movie is shot completely, from beginning to end, on a hand held digital camera that different characters take turns filming with throughout the course of the movie, very much like Blair Witch Project. Although this can take some getting used to, and yes it did make me extremely dizzy and disoriented, the artistic benefits from filming a movie in this way are obvious from the beginning. Viewers are able to see enough of the action and disaster to satisfy the biggest action junky, yet enough is left unexplained that the movie doesn't at any time seem fake or scripted. You are able to see the entire story as it unfolds though the eyes of a very small group of people which allows you to identify and ultimately sympathize with them. As well as giving the movie a more personal effect, the home camera gives this movie a very post 9/11 feel. We've all seen the shots of the WTC falling in NYC and people running for their lives as the dust from the towers quickly moves down the street engulfing everything in its path. Watching the Empire State Building fall to pieces before your very eyes will bring back memories of those fateful days in 2001 when our lives changed forever. The camera style also gives this movie a very Jaws like effect. The director of this film was able to show just enough of the monster to satisfy his audience, yet also hide it enough so that by the end you still aren't quite sure what it was or what it looked like. Although there are some shots where the monster thing is in full view and staring right at the camera, it is still hard to see because the camera is of such "poor" quality and doesn't allow you to see much. The monster is hidden in full view, a brilliant way of building suspense that is as scary as it is original (at least in the giant monster genera).
Despite the very blatant references to 9/11 it is very refreshing to see a film that is brave enough to re-create that fateful day yet stay neutral on any political commentary. Cloverfield does not exist to pass judgment on anyone, or to give its own opinions or views on 9/11, instead it tries, and succeeds in my opinion, in showing how the events took place from the eyes of those who witness it. The movie focuses on the disaster itself, separating itself from all the political commentary and conspiracy theories that followed, and for that I give it major props for that.
Although the movie steers clear of a lot of political commentary, it does not hesitate to give us a generous helping of social commentary. What does everyone do when the see the head of the Statue of Liberty rolling down the street? They take pictures on their camera phones of course, and then they huddle around the video camera to get a glimpse of what it was that just invaded their city. What do people do when the cops and military are preoccupied with fighting off the giant monster? They loot electronic stores and steal TV's and radios, a clear reference to the chaos that followed disaster in New Orleans and to a lesser extent Baghdad after the US invasion. People watch spongbob squarpants along with news footage of the destruction of Manhattan. Its the little things like this that are what sets Cloverfield above Godzilla and King Kong (Widescreen Edition) (as much as I love Peter Jackson) and makes it something memorable and special.
But this movie doesn't get bogged down in its social commentary and 9/11 references. in its heart of hearts Cloverfield, for all its artistic filming style and commentary, really just wants to be an action/horror movie. From the second the monster shows up in the city to the very end every minute is filled with gun battles, fighter jets flying overhead unleashing their rockets into the city, and old fashioned giant monster destroying the city fun. This is what Godzilla should have been, instead of being a Hollywood style movie, shot in a very unoriginal and cheesy style with an unimaginative script and plot, Cloverfield manages to give action on a monumental scale yet show its audience relatively little of what is actually going on. The scares in this movie resemble those found in movies like 28 Weeks Later (Widescreen Edition). There is a scene about halfway though the movie that takes place in an underground tunnel in almost complete darkness with all the light coming from a few dim lights in the ceiling and a night vision scope on the camera, reminiscent of similar scenes in last years sequel to 28 Days Later (Widescreen Edition). This movie does not rely on cheap scares that any idiot can do, instead it slowly builds up tension and manages to keep its audience tense and scared throughout its entire running time.
Believe the hype people, this movie not only lives up to the mystery and excitement of its trailers but surpasses them. This movie has all the potential to become the next great cult classic and join the ranks of horror greats from history. Move aside Godzilla, there's a new giant monster in town.
Re-watch value; very high.
Movie Review: "People Are Gonna Want To Know... How It All Went Down"
Summary: 5 Stars
Going into Cloverfield, I was incredibly curious. Would I vomit from the camera? Could this monster be the next Godzilla? Could a movie work with NO stars? Could J. J. Abrams flop in the face of hype again? To answer those in order: No, Doubtfully, Yes, No. In fact, I think this movie is an instant classic that isn't afraid to turn Hollywood rules on its head. What Abrams and company do is take the old premise of monster in NYC and take it from a whole new Point of View. And POV is what this movie is all about.
Main Camera Man Hud is obviously not good with the camera, as seen in the beginning, compared with Jason's camera work. Being from the younger demographic, this shaky-cam doesn't phase me at all, since I am probably used to YouTube effect. And let me say, if you thought Hud's camera work was bad, you should see mine. Nobody would have made it out of the theater without falling down in a dizzy drunken stupor. So anyways, while we're used to the normal omniscient camera style of the all-seeing-eye, seeing everything, this style does have its advantages. It provides the film's best "Oh Crap!" moment in the tunnel, when they turn on night vision.
The bad thing about this style is the fact that it's very hard to keep up with the camera, and everything going around. So, it's kind of hard to tell which person is dying, and who is alive. It didn't help any that both Beth and Lizzy were both brunettes. So, it took me awhile to figure out what happened on the Brooklyn Bridge, who was put into the helicopter first, and who was with Rob at the very end. I also didn't know that Lizzy's helicopter went down. But thankfully, there's Wikipedia to give you a scene-by-scene summery of the movie's events.
I also liked the little touch where everytime the camera was turned off, you had the little moment's of Rob and Beth's Coney Island date. Not much, but it just seems to strangely work in the movie, and gives a nice break to the action going on around.
Speaking of action, it's pretty darn good for a movie made on the budget of most romantic comedies. The suspense and action keeps you on your toes, and there's plenty of cringe moments that keeps the mood all the more intense. Although I really could have done without the exploding stomach and the rescue of the impaled girl. But I thank the movie for being restrained, since they could have easily gone into R-Territory, which would have made the whole film a cheesy horror film. Oh yeah, it would be "The Blair Witch Project."
Let me also say that the famous/infamous Statue of Liberty head in the streets scene, will go down as one of the classic Hollywood scenes. I mean, the scene is just so classic. Head flying down and rolling down in the streets. The Shock. The "OH MY GOD!" being repeated over and over. The Surprise. Total classic.
For being a no-star movie, everybody in the cast does an excellent job. There's no bad acting, no fake acting, all the emotions seem real, and in fact, these actors do a better job than their more famous counterparts would do. And for a lack of character development, I liked most of the characters in the movie, and when I could tell that they just died, I was saddened by their loss. Except for Marlena, who I didn't get the appeal of.
However, when it came to Hud, I was deeply saddened by his loss. Maybe it's because I'm a fan of T.J. Miller since he stole the show on the now cancelled Carpoolers. The guy is just likable, and he brings his personality to Hud. Alas, this brings me to my next complaint.
Why did Hud have to die? I mean, he just seems to be cheapened when he's eaten by the creature, just for the sake of us getting a facial glimpse of the monster. I would have liked it if Hud was like the only survivor, and found a way to escape operation "Hammer Down." Sure, incredibly unlikely, but still. Instead, the film ends up a bit depressing, since basically every character you've met during the course of the film, is dead. And the monster seems to still be alive. Yet, it's nice to see the profession of love at the end, and it again, strangely seems to work.
But for all of that, you also have to add the realism of the entire thing. I mean, if a monster like that were really to attack NYC (highly unlikely), that's probably how it would take place. And most importantly, these seemed like real characters, not cardboard cutouts of twenty-somethings.
So overall, for it's realism, originality, execution, characters, and premise, this movie earns the title of "Instant Classic." It defines a era that is 2008, where terrorism is the first thing you think of when a major disaster happens, the YouTube/Camera Phone culture and just society in general. It's the little things that make the movie more than the big things, and they work in unexpected ways. Sure, I would have probably changed a couple of things, but it all seems to work. As for the rumor of sequels, I'm a bit hesitant, as is the crew, because you really need a new gimmick, as this has already been done. And quite well I might add.
Movie Review: The camcorder is the star; point of view is everything
Summary: 5 Stars
Of course, reviewers are going to complain about the shaky camcorder photography. Whether or not it made them dizzy or ill depends upon their own sensibilities; perhaps they are the people who become easily car sick or air sick; perhaps on the big screen in a dark theatre the moving images are magnified. I don't know; I viewed it on DVD.
Okay. But without the camcorder perspective, what do we have? Another throwback to 1950s post-atomic fallout science-fiction with giant squids, giant octopii, scorpians, locusts, spiders, ants, and preying mantises -- all the result of man's carelessness with nuclear detonations? The story, of course, is nothing: Beth and Rob "had sex" (woooooooo -- how old are these people? young sophisticated New York Yuppies or midwestern twelve-year-olds?) No. The story is nothing, but the presentation is everything -- point of view is the central gimmick and existential premise. Versimilitude is all -- the unreal is made to look real.
Film scholar Louis D. Giannetti reminded us years ago that each new camera set-up in a motion picture, between or even within shots, presents viewers with a new perspective from which to evaluate what they see. Films, for example, often combine omniscient narration with the first person, and the director may cut directly from first-person subjective point-of-view shots to objective camera angles, from close-ups to gauge reactions of single characters to long shots [UNDERSTAND MOVIES. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976].
Many films have, through the years, relied heavily on the subjective camera (e.g., LADY IN THE LAKE, 1946) and those FRIDAY THE 13th blood- baths where horny teenages at Crystal Lake are murdered one by one. In Jack Arnold's 3-D film IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE, 1953), audiences are given control over the earthlings because the point of view when they confront the aliens is from the aliens' perspective, a device that allows the audience to see the earthlings as victims. The residents of the sleepy desert town of Sand Rock, Arizona, fimd themselves enveloped in the billowing fog that borders the vision of the viewers while they stalk victims from behind the bubble-eye of the aliens.
CLOVERFIELD is part of this subjective camera sub-genre. It begins disarmingly enough with a clever, non-horror title -- quite inspired -- not what one would expect for a monster movie like those of the 1950s or the awful Godzilla imports. The tape found in the camcorder is the whole story -- from the beginning when Rob is sneaking up on Beth during the morning-after sequence to the Coney Island close-ups of Beth giggling into the lens -- to the ending when we are back at Coney Island, the part of the tape which was not inadvertently taped over by beginner videographer "Hud" (coaxed into taking on videotaping chores by the hero's brother who wants a record of the party which is celebrating the brother's departure to Japan). The ending of the tape is the ending of the film, showing Rob and Beth's idyllic time together before the mayhem -- the tape which has now, according to the beginning of the film, become part of an official government documentation of the events.
The New York setting provides understandable echoes of 9-11 -- another terrorist attack, as some of the panicked characters speculate. Fortunately, the cinema verite plot focuses more on the fleeing citizens than on the scientists and military types that we saw in the 1950s, but with 21st century dialogue and profanity. Even one of the military officers looks like an alumnus from the TWIN PEAKS television series, but he is onscreen in only fleeting, hand-held shots. I wonder if he complained to his agent about this. We even see scenes of enterprising thieves breaking into an electronics store and looting it -- an aspect of disasters that, unfortunately, are all too real and commonplace. Even our hero, the Tom Cruise clone, steals a phone in order to call his trapped former girl friend, Beth. As they try to cross the bridge to Brooklyn, the hero's brother is wiped out, along with many others, when the tail of the gigantic creature descends on the historical structure. So much for being an iconoclast -- first the Statue of Liberty is decapitated; then the famous bridge is sawed in half. No respect.
CLOVERFIELD may not be the overnight commercial success that THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT enjoyed, but it is as least as effective, and the denouement is just as downbeat. Quit whining about the shaking camera and enjoy the experience for what it is supposed to be -- an exercise in verisimilitude.
Movie Review: One Giant Monster can ruin your whole Day
Summary: 5 Stars
So the camera is swinging and lofting and lurching about like a rabid bat on a blood bender, whirling and gyring and wheeling and ducking and lurching about the facial topography of a bazillion pimply, bleary eyed denizens of a New York cocktail party.
I'm getting dizzy. I'm getting a little sick. I'm really relating to the character Marlena (tasty Lizzy Kaplan, who suffers a fate that shouldn't happen to a sick dog) in the movie, who does an on-screen puke. Blarf. I'm thinking I've made a terrible mistake. I'm thinking there's 90 minutes of my life I'm not going to ever get back.
I'm wrong.
Because about 11 minutes into this thing, right about the point where the lead (Michael Stahl-David, as Rob Hawkins) is mooning about the loss of his newly beloved Beth & commiserating with brother Jason and buddy Hud (T.J. Miller soldiering on as the cameraman, by sheer chance and naivete), there's this batrachian howl of rage, or fury, or hunger, constipation (or all of the above) out over the water near Liberty Island, and the whole flick goes wild.
"Cloverfield" is a work of insurgent genius: it's about a lonely primal howl of a very different sort---the howl of impending Extinction. And lemme tell ya, baby, it's never easy to be the scouting party headed down Dinosaur Trail.
"Cloverfield" is what happens when man---with his 24/7 Internet and email, his up to the second cellphone coverage (except when Giant Monsters Attack!), his field artillery barrage of News on the Move, his pointless cares and useless concerns---gets rudely shouldered over in the Great Galactic Food Chain.
It's a movie of totally immersive apocalyptic art, the horror film as nerve jangling stimulant, a kind of hyperkinetic cinematic terrorism. It is brutal. It is scary. It is vicious.
And it pulled off something I considered impossible---it disturbed me. Boiled down to its guts, it's a different kind of Ground Zero, and it certainly taps edgily into the horror of 9/11: when the New York Life Building collapes, there's this great moment when a street sweeping wall of smoke and debris comes plowing down the alley and a gaggle of fugitives hunkers down behind the counters and aisles of a darkened pharmacy they've commandeered as a lifeboat against the Terror, and it sorta sets the tone.
It's a story of the Day the Earth didn't just stand still, but screamed and ran like a rabbit, and of the Monster who really took Manhattan and used it as an All-you-Can-Eat buffet table.
The remarkable thing JJ Abrams and his director Mike Reeves have done is a brilliant little trick of cinematic wizardry, by which he transforms the handheld shaky-came from annoying barrier to excruciatingly intimate portal into a once sane, recognizable world battered into Nightmare Territory.
There are some true shockers here, some things that shook me up: the glimpses of a smoke and destruction shrouded Thing working its destruction high up among the lofty spires in the clouds; the frantic shots of a writhing hateful brood which drip off its carapace like snaggle-footed lice and perambulate wildly on the ground like carnivorous Mexcian jumping beans; a girl popping like a blood blister behind the immodest blue screen of a biohazard tent; the terrible spectacle of a highrise buckled in on its neighbor or a battle-tank squashed like an aphid.
Some killjoys have posted unexpurgated screenshots of the Creature (or at least Critter #1) in all its warts-and-all CGI glory, waving dismissively that the thing is not the least bit scary.
Don't listen to them---besides, what does a still shot prove about menace? Take a gander at a photograph of John Wayne Gacey: he hardly looks like the human shark he was in 3-D life. Set him in motion, unchain his black heart and unshackle his free range menace, and the proposition is entirely different.
So it is with the menace and creeping doom of "Cloverfield", possibly the most engaging horror flick I've seen since "Aliens": it's less about a Giant Monster (though happily boasting not one, but several, and in a few varieties) and far more about the kind of total Madness that tears off the mask of Civilization and lets us see the bony grinning face of Apocalypse.
"Cloverfield" is a wicked little mainline of pure malice and surprisingly nasty cold grue, the paranoid, deeply deranged 21st century's backhanded french kiss to Godzilla and Global Terror.
JSG
Movie Review: Not Your Typical Giant Monster Movie
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't know if thats a good or a bad thing for you, but I liked the movie. I suppose it depends on personal taste more than anything else though. I do tend to like giant monster movies, so I finally wound up breaking down and buying this movie after I saw it listed under my recommendations here on Amazon.com. I was not disappointed.
So what is it? Thats the million dollar question, isn't it? The movie starts out as a group of friends throw a party for Rob, who is going away to Japan (nice nod to the country that gave us Godzilla, Gamera and Ultraman, amongst others). About twenty minutes into the film, some THING happens and from that point on it becomes about trying to escape New York city while a giant monster runs amok. Hudd, one of the main characters, decides to document the whole thing on the camcorder, which winds up getting spliced in with the existing material on the tape. The end result is pretty interesting... sort of the natural progression from the 'Blair Witch Project,' except with a little (or maybe alot) more meat on it's bones. The ending was great too... I'm not going to spoil it anymore than that, but I liked it.
The story is very well done, I thought, focusing as much on the fact that theres a huge prehistoric monster rampaging through the streets of New York as it does on the characters, their relationships and their attempts to flee the city to safety. Despite what some people have said, we do get more than a few glimpses of the monster - in fact, it looks sort of like.. oh, I don't know, a multi-limbed reptilian-ape hybrid - but it is left mysterious. Nothing is really ever explained about the monster. Did it come up from the deep? Is it from outerspace? Was it a government experiment? Thats up to the viewers to decide. The makers of the film made a brilliant move in doing so, because keeping us in the dark makes the monster much more scary and unknown. And infinitely cooler in my opinion. However one clue MIGHT be seen off in the distance if you look very closely at the end.
Now, as for the special features, they were okay but not great. The deleted scenes, outtakes and two alternate endings were interesting, though they didn't add much. And I prefer the ending they went with over either of the slight variations. The other special features, like the making of and especially the little featurette about the monster... those were much better. It was especially neat to go back and watch the movie after learning some of the details about the monster, because it made the beast's actions that much more interesting. And, it also made you feel more sympathetic for the creature too. But I won't say much beyond that.
Over all, it was a great movie. The pacing of the action was very good, the monster was awesome (which you need for a movie like this), and the storyline, while similar to other giant monster flicks, was given a unique new spin. Quite innovative. The character of Hudd made an enjoyable, even sympathetic, narrator, and the woman playing Marlena (his crush) did a fun job in her role too. And it really winds up feeling like its an amateur blogger doing a home movie documenting some huge world-changing event. So kudos to the makers of Cloverfield. It REALLY is a cool new twist on giant monster movies, and worth seeing a couple times to take in everything. I liked it and strongly recommend it.