Cloverfield

Cloverfield reminds one of that line from Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park II. “Ooh. Ah. That’s how it’s starts. Then comes the running and the screaming.” And in Cloverfield, the bleeding, the dying, and the explosions.

Anyone who has gone to the movies in the past year has seen the hype about Cloverfield. The whole movie is purported to be a tape from a home video camera found in the ruins of New York, in the sector “formally known as Central Park” after a stout monster trashes the city. The hurky, jerky motions, the speedily cutting, the odd points of view do not recommend the Film to anyone who is prone to motion sickness.

The film starts off at a farewell party for a guy name Rob who is on his way to Japan to become the Vice President of some corporation. The party is filled with cute looking twenty somethings who always seem to inhabit these sorts of stories. During the sequence, somewhat indifferently shot by Rob’s best friend Hud, we learn that Rob slept with a woman named Beth with whom he is now somewhat estranged.

Then there is a loud noise, the lights go off, then the lights go on. Some of the party guests run off to the roof to see what’s going on. They look a Huge explosion unbiased south of the city with debris flying everywhere. Everyone runs down to the street just in time to see the head of the Statue of Liberty impact like a basketball.

Then, as Jeff Goldblum would say, comes the running and the screaming.

The characters who are running for their lives don’t know what’s going on at first. There are briefs glimpses of-something-rampaging through the city. Buildings are knocked down and clouds of dust billow through the street with people running from them reminiscent of 9/11.

The attempt by Rob and his friends to coast the city is complicated when Rob gets a cell phone call from Beth, apparently laying trapped and injured somewhere, begging for help. Rob, feeling somewhat guilty about how he has treated her, vows to find and rescue her. His friends eschew running for safety and decide to help him.

The huge monster also has some flea-like parasites the size of large dogs that drop off of its body and wreck their own kind of havoc. Let’s put it this way. You do not want to be bit by one of these nightmare creatures.

Most movies about giant monsters trashing a city concern the people trying to stop it-the generals and scientists, with maybe a esteem interest thrown in. Coverfield is about those other people, who urge through the streets screaming, “Gojira! Gojira!” and occasionally accumulate stepped on.

The movie viewer doesn’t see the monster or a good study at the devastation until the last section of the movie. By the nature of the film’s gimmick, sort of a Blair Godzilla Project, the Style is decidedly less is more. People are torn apart and eviscerated off cloak, for the most part. This may prove to be a disappointment for some. Still Cloverfield was an enjoyable and interesting hour and a half.