Cloverfield

The best way to describe “Cloverfield” is that it is “Godzilla” meets “The Blair Witch Project.” It takes the monster movie genre in a fresh new direction, and it makes it one of the more spellbinding movies made in that particular genre in what feels like years. This is what I hoped Roland Emmerich’s “Godzilla” would be like when it was originally released, but that movie turned out to be an enormous piece of shit.

The fact that “Cloverfield” is any good is something of a miracle. This was released in January, and that’s where Hollywood tends to dump all the crappy movies on us because they had no idea of where else to save them. Plus, this is a movie that could have easily collapsed under the height of anticipation and expectation that preceded it with the brilliant marketing campaign behind it. We all saw that brilliant teaser trailer that brought us the severed head of the Statue of Liberty which was throttled right down into the middle of Manhattan. We didn’t see the title for the Film until months later, and we couldn’t discontinuance thinking about it. That trailer was analyzed like it was the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination. But it’s finally here, and it has gotten 2008 off to a good start.

“Cloverfield” takes place in the city of New York which has seen its fair part of destruction on and off the big screen. It starts off with some color bars on the screen and there is a message stating that this is footage from the area “formerly known as Central Park.” Those are ominous words indeed, and it leaves us in a residence of suspended tension as we already know something very bad is going to go down. We first meet Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) as he is filming the apartment of the woman he just slept with, Beth McIntyre (Odette Yustman). We get to see them hanging out with each other in Coney Island throughout the film, but the movie then jumps ahead to a month or so later when Rob is about to leave New York for a new job in Japan. It turns out that Beth and Rob never really hung out with each other after that grand day they had, and the time they had together is on both their minds. But objective as they try to sort out their personal crap, the earth shakes beneath them, and (of course) all hell breaks loose.

“Cloverfield” does take its time getting started which is not really a bad thing. It takes the time to establish the main players and their backgrounds. The script doesn’t flesh them out completely, but they are fleshed out enough to where you do care about them. The great surprise party thrown for Rob is filled with people who look like they at the very least got a callback for one or more of the shows on the WB network (now the CW network). It would have been nice to see the filmmakers add some more ordinary people into this party that did not have the perfect body or such Noxzema clear faces, but anyway.

What makes this monster film particularly effective is that it is told from the ground view. We are there with the people as they experience this firsthand, and the characters are not just simple clichés that look and feel like they belong more in a sitcom. That’s what drove me nuts about “Godzilla.” Like Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds,” it is not caught up with the military as they make decisions on how to beat this tremendous beast. It is more concerned with people like you and me and how we might struggle to survive in this spot. The adrenaline keeps running high as Take and a few others struggle to get to Beth who is trapped in her high rise apartment.

Another key factor in the movie is that it doesn’t show us the monster right away, which as a result makes the thought of the monster more terrifying than anything else. We do get to notice the monster eventually, but not in it’s entirety until late into the movie. I would love to portray it to you, but I’d rather you discover it for yourself as I really don’t want to spoil the surprise. Nothing will compare to the first time you watch this movie. It certainly is a much scarier monster than what you saw in the 1990′s version of “Godzilla.”

The movie is also dominated by the shaky cam work that threatens to become an overused cliché in movie making today. For those of you who have serious motion sickness problems, I would advise you to not sit too close to the conceal. As for myself, I actually dealt with it well. I was starting to judge that I might have reached my limit with shaky camerawork after “The Kingdom,” and it fails in comparison to the brilliant camerawork that was accomplished in “The Bourne Ultimatum.” But here, it’s stunning and it keeps you on the edge of your seat. It was for me anyway. I know of a bunch of friends of mine who have no patience for this type of camerawork, so I would be hard pressed to recommend this to them.

“Cloverfield” is not exactly brilliant filmmaking, but it does get the job done, and with no valid music score might I add. We don’t get to hear a score until the end credits where Abrams favorite Michael Giaachiano who composed a piece that is a tribute of sorts to the monster movies of the past. Credit however should go to director Matt Reeves who directs his first movie here since “The Pallbearer” which was made back in 1996. He keeps the action grounded enough to where we have no problem following the characters even if their situation is not entirely probable. It was also a smart move to cast unknown actors in the movie as well, and all acquit themselves nicely. To cast a big name star in this movie would not have worked because the reality of the situation would have been diminished. It would have been more of a movie than an experience which is how it should be.

In case you haven’t been able to tell from this review, I really didn’t like “Godzilla” as it made “Independence Day” look like “Raging Bull.” So I guess I am just gratified that we finally have a monster movie that actually gets the job done properly. “Cloverfield” lives up enough to the hype to be an inspiring movie that leaves some hope for the rest of January. “Rambo” is coming out next week, so I hope that Sylvester Stallone will be able to pull off some of that “Rocky Balboa” magic. But “Cloverfield” is an intense ride that beats any Japanese horror movie remake that Hollywood is level-headed foolish enough to inflict on us after all this time.

***1/2 out of ****