Runtime:
1 hr. 24 min.
Rating:
PG-13 violence, terror and disturbing images
Cast:
Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel,
Odette Yustman
Director:
Matt Reeves
Genres:
Sci-Fi Disaster Film, Monster Film, Science Fiction, Sci-Fi Horror
Damn.
A film that actually lived up to its hype.
I just came back from J.J. Abrams’ production of Cloverfield, and I am here to tell you it takes everything we know about the giant monster attacking NYC genre and turns it on its scaly head. It is a scary, fun and surprisingly fresh rollercoaster ride.
For months now, the film has been the subject of intense Internet scrutiny? Is the title really Cloverfield? How could they do a trailer without a title? Omg will the guy yelling “Ohmigod” at the Statue of Liberty’s head please shut up? Is this the monster? Is it Godzilla? Voltron?
Yes 6 months of that. Thank god it’s over.
I remember my reaction to the trailer - “Oh look a bunch of CW kids getting ready to be eaten and stomped on by something. Good.” I was actually stunned that I found myself caring about each and every one of them.
It’s springtime in NYC. Rob, played by Michael Stahl-David, is about to leave for Japan to take a lucrative job. He comes to a surprise going away party thrown by his brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and his girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas). Also there is Rob’s ex Beth (Odette Yustman). Beth and Rob really love each other, but it seems like the Japan gig is getting in their way. Big time. And there to document it all on his digi-recorder is Rob’s best friend Hudson Platt, played by T.J. Miller. Rob decides to use this party as a chance to get things off his chest with Beth.
Yawn.
We’ve seen this angst before…on Smallville, The O.C. to name a few. You know the drill - lots of cool conversation and slang thrown around by beautiful 20-somethings.
“Dude, you know you really love her.”
“How could you come here with him?”
Yawn.
Then BOOM!
Something harsh, mean and brutal rocks their party. Scared Rob and the other revelers go outside on the roof…then the street. Of course that part we’ve seen on over and over again in trailers and on the net – the skyscraper in the distance exploding…the panic…The Statue of Liberty’s head rolling up the street.
What you haven’t seen is the rest. Which quite frankly is a terror trek as Rob and his friends try to escape New York from a creature unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
And unlike our angst-ridden 20-somethings, this creature has no conscience. No guilt. It’s just there to destroy.
Oh and by the way, this monster, which is as tall as the Empire State Building, is not a giant lizard. It has a tail, but it ain’t no lizard. And it’s brought party favors – crab-like creatures, which drop off of its body, and eats anything in site.
An allegory of course to 9/11 (it was once rumored that this would be called 01/18/08) Cloverfield works because it isn’t about a giant monster wrecking havoc on New York. It’s not about the heroes who go off to fight it. There’s no scientist, working in a local high school, with the answer to the problem. Cloverfield is about people like you and me. Okay check that, it’s about very attractive people (ha) trying to survive while New York crumbles around them.
They are scared and they don’t have answers. Which leaves us scared and without answers. Filmed of course as the Blair Witch Project’s cousin (all on government owned video), Cloverfield puts us right in the middle of the melee. We feel Rob and company’s surprise when they turn a corner and there’s the creature! Run. Oh shit there’s the army! Run. There is an immediacy this technique brings the film.
Particularly terrifying is a trip through the subway tunnels and how they rescue Beth.
I also really loved the fact that there is no explanation for the creature’s existence. We don’t know where it came from and or where it’s going back to. I do know this though. I am going back…for a second and third viewing.
Would Cloverfield have been as scary if it were shot like, for lack of a better term, a normal movie? Probably not. The realism of the camcorder puts us right in the center of the maelstrom. The camera work and the lighting also conceal the creature, which makes it far scarier. And the lack of a musical score really adds to the realism. Some will hate Cloverfield for its experimental filmmaking. Yes, the haters are already coming out in droves. I fall in the former. Director Matt Reeves has done a bang up job with getting actual performances that feel like how people would really react out of his actors.
In a day where audiences are jaded and feel like they have seen it all, Cloverfield reinvents the genre. It’s the kind of movie I wish I could write.
FOUR BALL POINT PENS.