As he prepares to leave New York for Japan, Robert Hawkins (Michael Stahl David) must trek all the way across town, through busy sidewalks, street entertainers and horrendous night time traffic to find the woman he loves (Odette Yustman).
Oh, yeah, and there is an enormous monster tearing the city apart and killing everyone in it. We probably should have mentioned that first.
Directed to give the impression of recovered camcorder footage, Cloverfield is The Blair Witch Project with a budget (kudos to anyone who can find more than a text message that doesn‘t make such a comparison).
They say:
Empire: "A dazzling experiment that paid off immensely, this is cinematic pleasure at its purest."
Variety: "An old fashioned monster movie dressed up in trendy new threads."
Time: "Basically the 1954 Godzilla told in the style of, and with the characters from, The Blair Witch Project."
We say:
This is one confusing movie: horror, sci fi, thriller - genre wise it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where you are.
After endless party chatter in the opening scenes, you might find yourself shouting "Gimme the monster!" or "Gimme an explosion!" or just "Gimme more than a load of pretty people talking about themselves!"
When the Statue of Liberty’s head rolls down Manhattan, Cloverfield kicks into gear, only to stall again five minutes later. It’s all quick bursts of action, some drawn out character exposition, more action, more exposition, action, exposition - repeat until credits.
The acting too is largely atrocious, with half the cast impossible to tell apart anyway. Their daft names do not help: ‘Marlena Diamond’ and ‘Hud Platt‘? ‘Robert Hawkins’ sounds more retired army colonel than wealthy New York go getter.
These people are impossible to engage with - you won’t care less if any of them die, let alone when, and being as you spend ninety percent of the movie following them around, this can be a problem.
So what of the monster itself? If you like obviously computer animated beasts that neatly change scale to fit the components of a scene, you will be in seventh heaven. If you want to be more scared than on your first day of school, you won’t be. After all the sneaky glimpses and fake ‘news footage’ purposely leaked onto the internet, this is one critter who holds up far better in your imagination.
Cloverfield is one of the most hyped movies of all time, at least via the relative freshness of web marketing. If you have not heard of this film, you are probably wrong – you have heard of it, the campaign has just been so cryptic and secretive (the title was only confirmed a couple of months back) that the effect has been largely subliminal.
This works for and against the final product. Expectation and excitement are at breaking point, yet it cannot possibly live up to its own publicity. The monster would need to stomp out of the screen and follow you into the car park for it to do that. Actually, this would have helped the last act move along a bit quicker.
While not a true 9/11 allegory, the similarities are numerous and, generally, in rather poor taste. As a dust cloud from a collapsed building exhumes the city, one thought pops to mind: why New York? Why not California or Chicago? Are we really ready to align one of the worst terrorist attacks in history with a giant squid kicking down skyscrapers? We would offer, no.
Motion sickness does not add to your comfort either. The persistently shaky camera sways to and fro so much the upshot is more nauseating than thrilling. Skip the nachos/ hotdog combo and opt for a packet of aspirin instead.
Cloverfield is not all bad. It effectively captures the immediacy of the moment - the concept is cool and occasionally entertaining, but a monster hit? No, this is more like an annoying puppy nipping at your ankles.
CAST
Blake Lively
Mike Vogel
Odette Yustman
Michael Stahl David
DIRECTOR
Matt Reeves
TIME
85 mins
POSTED...
Sun 3 Feb at 7:39pm
