cloverfield
Have you seen one of the many Godzilla movies? Have you seen the Blair Witch Project? Good… what would be a good hybrid of these two? Picture it. Shake the camera around a bit more. Still picturing it? Add in a couple romantic asides and one that drives your plot and you’ve just mentally captured the basic concept of this film. Unfortunately, you’ve also just pictured a couple thousand low-budget first-time-filmmaker epics shot on their newly acquired digicorders.
I didn’t know what to think going in, partly because of its marketing, but thought I’d watch it like I’ve watched date movie or white chicks—with a passing interest that quickly fades. It tried too much, and fell short if its own expectations, but, the more I think about it, I have to admit sort of liking this one.
The film starts out, like blair witch with a prologue that outlines the discovery of a tape, documenting events and shown to us, the viewers. It does it differently, but still, same jist. The camcorder is handed to a friend in order to film a surprise party for Rob, who is on his way to Japan. There are a few testimonials, some drama goes down, and suddenly the whole place shakes. Everyone runs outside and we see the shot from the previews of the head of the Statue of Liberty being tossed down the street like a father tossing a ball to his young son. From there it’s a conveniently documented scramble for survival and then rescue.
For an unoriginal concept, it was executed well enough. The filming was somewhat realistic given the situation and there was comedic relief by way of comments by the cameraman, Hud (T.J. Miller). The characters were interesting and the plot was driven at a solid pace. The effects were good enough because they were seen through jerky and unreliable camera work. There was some intensity and a few twists that were refreshing. The general perspective was smart. The characters didn’t know any more than they should for odd reasons. None of them were grad students in bio-mutations and went on a long-winded tangent about how things could have gone down.
There was one aspect that I really liked. The concept of the first-person film isn’t new. It’s a cool genre, but has inherent limitations. This one finds an “I can’t believe no one’s thought of this” way to bring in different perspectives, if only temporarily. It adds volume to the story and feeds the plot nicely.
The cast is relative unknowns. Most of them come from television. Lizzy Caplan (mean girls) and Mike Vogel (deaths of ian stone, havoc) are the exceptions. The acting is adequate, but not impressive. It may come from their combined inexperience or the style of shooting. There was enough believability in the character interaction to keep the story moving. They have much the same drama as any group of close friends would. That very much helps the plot as things get worse and worse for the main cast.
I hope the direction isn’t the heralding of a new genre on the back of Matt Reeves. It’s good, but I don’t see how he could translate the style into anything else, except maybe a Bourne film. It’s hand-held first-person-view jerkiness and limitations would get tiresome quickly. The writing is decent, but from a man like Drew Goddard (lost, alias, buffy) you would expect intricate, but not necessarily realistic, stories. It worked for this one, but I can only imagine how bad the product of impersonators will be.
Some of the shots were ridiculous, ill-timed, or down-right hilarious. I was half expecting an icon to appear in the top right, flashing a low battery, and for the picture to cut out just as the monster approached. It would have been just as redundant as most of the character developments. They already took the time to use the over-lens light and night-vision to drive the plot, which is never done.
This is something you’ll want to rent, if you’re into it. You’ll either love it or hate it, but there’s not a lot of room for a gray area. It’s a good time monster movie. If you look at it as more than that it’s forced and simple, so don’t look at it like that.
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