Shaky cam, ahoy!
Seriously, I saw this movie a few years ago. It was called The Blair Witch Project.
Cloverfield tells the story of a group of friends who are living it up in Manhattan, celebrating one friend’s new job in Tokyo when something goes horribly wrong in the city. Things start blowing up and buildings come crashing down, and the group of friends rushes into the street to see a glimpse of a large monster doing its best Godzilla impersonation. From there, the rag tag group has to survive crazy obstacles to survive, including their own stupidity.
What amazes me about Cloverfield is how thoroughly unappetizing fare it is. What should have been buttery, popcorn fun is just plain gross.
Any movie like this, you should actively care about the survival of the main characters. The idea of the introduction to our scrappy bunch of survivors is by showing them at a party, where it’s painfully evident that they’re shallow, self-absorbed types who have some randomly interspliced love problems to keep things predictably interesting, in a way. So, right from the get go, you think to yourself, “Right…I should care…why?”
That’s a problem. Oh, and they have crap taste in music, which certainly doesn’t help matters any.
And when the big bad monster starts destroying New York skyscraper by skyscraper, the conversation descends into less of “Dude! Bro! MAN!” and more into, “AIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE, OHMIGOD OHMIGOD OHMIGOD” for thirty minutes straight.
Me: “AIEEEEEEEEE. When are you all going to die? Hurry up. I’ve got another terrible movie waiting to be watched.”
Then the little monsters that spawn from the big monster come out, and the characters make the most infinitely stupid decision imaginable – head into the subway tunnels. They get picked off, one by one, in a grueling testament to my patience and ability to grind my teeth into a fine powder. By the time one dies via stomach explosion, it’s easily apparent that everyone is going to die.
Oh, wait. There’s still another 45 minutes left to the movie. Filler time.
So the characters are left zig-zagging around Manhattan, trying to rescue a friend and board a helicopter, and you get a subtle, Jason-esque “Gotcha!” moment, where the remaining survivors believe they’re free and then are pretty much bitchslapped by the monster into Central Park.
At the end of the film, you’re left with two characters professing their love before Central Park and the rest of Manhattan is carpetbombed to destroy the monster. Fun!
I was actively cheering for the monster to win by the end (“Go, big grey thing, GO!”). That’s how shallow and single-layered these characters are; the dumb guy is dumb, the best friends truly ARE in love, and the nasty, bitchy outsider is … nasty and bitchy.
Not a moment of it is really, truly terrifying. If you could get a good visual lock on what’s going on, that would certainly help. Most of the movie is set at night from the perspective of a handheld camcorder, so it’s not exactly easy to make out what’s going on. Further, this whole “civilian footage” thing would be infinitely more appealing to me had we not already seen this for The Blair Witch Project.
Now, I’m not a professional – I have no film degree, no (real) writing experience, no great depth or understanding of film criticism in general. I watch movies and I write about the impressions I get. After 1,400 plus movies, I think I can honestly say that if your story really blows, your movie is going to really blow. They do a lot of things right: minimal shots of the monster to heighten tension, using the whole shaky-cam shot by a Real!Person! effect to create confusion and chaos, and so on and so forth. But the general outline of the plot doesn’t feel good to me; it feels weak and like the monster should be the star attraction, but it’s really not.
The problem is that to make an effective movie like this, you have to have something to care about. We’ve all seen monster movies before; we’ve all seen New York Gets Destroyed movies before. Hell, we all saw big chunks of New York get destroyed in real life. The trick is that you have to make it feel fresh to feel scary. There’s nothing new or exciting about Cloverfield whatsoever, aside from some intelligent marketing.
You didn’t like it? I dug it.
http://kevinlehane.com/2008/02/08/the-poster-quote-review-cloverfield/
I hated the camera guy character. Just his face alone made me want to punch him. But, it was refreshing. I couldn’t watch a sequel . . . or watch another film like it. But for a one time only deal, I liked it.
You didn’t like it? I dug it.
I just got bored. The novelty wore off for me about five minutes in.
I think I probably would have liked it more if I saw it in a theater. That, and just the fact that half the time I couldn’t even make out what was going on just made me not like it that much.
I will say, after following this one up back-to-back with P.S. I Love You, I’d take Cloverfield any day. My opinion of Cloverfield has actually shot UP since then.
I toooold you sooooo…..
Just kidding, Caitlin. But honestly, it was a fucking terrbile movie wasn’t it? When they crash the helicopter and fucking survive?WTFretarded!
I think you hit the nail on the head with this line:
“AIEEEEEEEEE. When are you all going to die? Hurry up. I’ve got another terrible movie waiting to be watched.”
Too funny. I have to admit, the effects were decent. But that was about it for me.
I hated the camera guy character. Just his face alone made me want to punch him.
Unless you’re a hockey fan this probably won’t make sense Kevin…but that camera guy looked exactly like a teenage Joe Thornton. Caitlin? You concur?
When they crash the helicopter and fucking survive?WTFretarded!
AHHH, I know! And then five minutes later, one of them gets EATEN. By the monster. WTF.
Unless you’re a hockey fan this probably won’t make sense Kevin…but that camera guy looked exactly like a teenage Joe Thornton. Caitlin? You concur?
Dude, you’re spot on! Just a douchier, frat boy version of Joe Thornton carrying a lot of booze weight! (Joe Tho is such a nice guy that I don’t know how I feel about comparing him to the “documenting” guy in Cloverfield, but I think Joe would understand.)
Dude, you’re spot on! Just a douchier, frat boy version of Joe Thornton carrying a lot of booze weight!
That’s what I thought!
(Joe Tho is such a nice guy that I don’t know how I feel about comparing him to the “documenting” guy in Cloverfield, but I think Joe would understand.)
He’s probably fine with it. Joe is an easy going guy. Plus he’s a gazillionaire. So he’s always got that to keep his spirits up.
Googled Joe Thornton. He is the puck off him. Puck. Geddit? Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha.
I enjoyed the style of Cloverfield. There were definitely some interesting points that left a lot of room for more interesting things to develop. However, that second layer of interest never showed up.
The trouble with the Cloverfield format was that I believed that there wasn’t a director and a huge film company behind this so-called “found footage.” No matter what happened in the plot or to the characters, the film would move on.
Here’s how I would have changed the film’s ending:
After the helicopter crash, with the camera just pointing at the back of the chair, I would have the camera roll for another 45 minutes until the tape ran out.
I still have not seen this! Stupid me.
I still have not seen this! Stupid me.
You’re not…missing much, I don’t think. (Don’t listen to Kevin or Scott. Like those dudes know what they’re talking about.)
I like how the people who comment on my blog are generally much more informed and knowledgeable than I am, don’t you?! Heh.
I love it too, the same happens at my place.