Cloverfield

Synopsis

A group of twenty-something year olds throw a going-away bash for their close friend in Manhattan. The party is disrupted when a mysterious, enormous monster wreaks havoc on New York City. This sends the group scurrying through the streets of pandemonium to stay alive.

Review

If you need to know why something happened in a movie, or what a title means, Cloverfield certainly is not the motion picture to provide you with such information. What can one expect from the producer and creator J.J. Abram’s (creator of Lost and Alias)? There was 6 months of film hype. The marketing all started with an on purpose leak of a brief snippet of the movie on line. Fake My-Space pages were created with the cast members and the buzz caught on virally. I found this to be a unique strategy. I saw the trailer for this flick a gazillion times. By the time the movie was about to come out, I was so sick of seeing the previews. I was thinking “what the ….. is a Cloverfield.” Through a little research I found out that it means NOTHING. It is just the name of a street near producer J. J. Abram’s Los Angeles office. They needed something to keep the true project on the down low and the name just stayed keeping us in an annoying suspense.

Cloverfield was suspenseful, and left me breathless at times. I do recommend to see this on the big screen to give yourself the full effect of sounds and an in-the-moment type of feel. If you are the type that gets motion sickness or dizzy quick, this is not the movie for you because the ENTIRE movie is shot from a handheld camcorder. At first, I was wondering when it would stop and give me the normal film view that I am accustomed to. IT NEVER DID! After a while I just got use to it. The movie was made to be seen from a camcorder through one’s POV. I actually think this worked well for this type of monster movie. If it had been filmed any other way, it would have just seemed like a typical Giant-Size monster flick like Godzilla. Yeah, the movie looks amateurish, but trust me, it is nothing but. I am sure it is more difficult to edit this type of film.

The camcorder is held by Hud (T.J. Miller) the best friend of Rob (Michael Stahl-Davis )who has been given a surprise going away party by his friends for his new job in Japan. Through the fire, chaos, flying Lady Liberty head, and the Monsters of all Monsters he holds onto this camcorder until the very end. I was screaming in my head for this man to just put down that dayum cam.

There were so many scenes where I wanted to jump in and tell some of the characters, “are you crazy? You don’t run towards the danger, you run away from the danger.” Makes no sense to me, but how else can they stretch out the movie?

This movie was of course, set in New York City. I guess it’s not yet time to change the wheel. I found that some of the scenes were insensitive due to 9/11. Because there were shots of collapsing buildings, smoke clouds, debris, and just craziness all around. I swear they took some actual footage from that horrifying day.

The going away party was a little drawn out, but it was necessary to establish the main characters. The party seemed very real to me. I actually felt like I was there too, sipping on some yak. The characters, to say the least were not 3 dimensional, but I felt for them, until they made some of the dumbest moves EVER. Just dumb! Like, running all around town in some high heel shoes. I say, Break those chumpies.

I wasn’t disappointed in this movie. I felt anxious, breathless, dizzy, and quite entertained. For me to feel all of these emotions, Cloverfield has done the dayum thang.

My Rating ~ 4 Reels

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