Cloverfield seems to be the culmination of the recent trend of handheld hyper-realism in action and horror movies. After The Blair Witch Project popularized the shaky cam technique, numerous films, from the Bourne and the 28 Days Later series to The Kingdom, have used it to place viewers in the frantic rush of the action with varying degrees of success. Now, with the shakiest camera available, the disaster genre gets its turn with this movie that depicts a relentless monster attack on New York City without the typical cheesy histrionics and rah-rah jingoist instincts that taint the central lean, mean terror.
The film, of course, is the one that has been surrounded by Internet hype and speculation ever since its trailer was shown attached to Transformers with just the producers’ name - J.J. Abrams - and no official title. The big money shot was that the head of the Statue of Liberty fell to the street in the midst of a monster attack that strikes New York City. All of this, as the previews indicated and similar to the premise of Abrams’ show Lost, is filmed entirely like a POV shot of a handful of survivors who have a friend’s going away party interrupted by a large explosion incited by the gigantic monster.
It is a credit to Abrams, director Matt Reeves, and writer Drew Goddard that they have not buried themselves under their clever ad campaign, unlike The Blair Witch Project, which became nothing more than a gimmick after the elaborately fake back story on the website prevented us from really using our imaginations to figure out whatever was going on in the dark. The filmmakers here kept their big creature as their secret weapon and the movie itself is smart enough to reveal the monster’s true nature piece by piece like bread crumbs. And no, I will not reveal what the creature really looks like or how it gestates other than to observe that I think it could probably have Godzilla for breakfast.
We don’t even really see much of a back story of the origin of the monster, just like the group of twenty-somethings initially celebrating that going away party for Rob (Michael Stahl David) would not from their limited perspective. The first half hour is just focused on that going away party as one of the guys, Hud (T.J. Miller), starts filming farewell testimonials from all of the party guests with his video camera. He also keenly has his eyes on Marlena (Lizzy Caplan), who is only a friend of a friend of Rob's and has only stopped by on the way to meet up with others later. All of a sudden, a rumbling explosion goes off in the distance and an earthquake shakes the apartment. They go up to the roof to investigate until another gigantic explosion sends fiery balls all throughout lower Manhattan. Then the head of the Statue of Liberty rolls down the street.
Article comments
1 - Ron Orszag
The movie sucked my head was spining not worth
watching or spending money on. you can keek that art work send it to your enemy.