Cloverfield

Floro's Late to the Party Reviews - Cloverfield

Finally, I have caught up to the Blair Witch Project sequel that wasn't that movie that was actually the Blair Witch Project sequel. And I'm glad I did. Because I can now say that the Blair Witch Project did it right and ruined everything for everyone.

J.J. Abrams decided to get on board the found footage nonsense train on a trip to Tokyo with his son. He said to himself, "Jage, How come America doesn't have a love for Godzilla like the Japanese do?" "I dunno Jage. Maybe it's because you haven't given them one?" "Oh, I'll give them one Jage. I'll give them one so Godzillicious they won't know what destroyed their precious city!! HAHAHAHAHAAHAH!"

You realize they gave this man the Death Stars now. All of them.

So he found a team of extras, a director, and a monster artist, probably all in the same coffee shop. Seriously, if you ever subject yourself to this DVD, watch the "making of" monster bits. The artist takes the time to explain how every fiber of his baby's existence was crafted by hand for the sole purpose of bringing you closer to this poor, wild animals' experience. He took the soulless eyes of a shark, the angry muscles of a pit-bull, and the poor lost rage of a grizzly bear in the city, and poured this into the bits and bytes of his computerized creation. Did you get that impression from the 147 frames worth of monster that made it past the cutting room? Because if you did, you clearly saw the best actor of that year.

He might drink your milkshake, but did he bite the head off Lady Liberty?

After assembling his crack team of specialists, he made sure to spend all of $48 on 2 hand held cameras and a lot of green tarp. I give credit to the CGI team. For the time, they did a solid job of blending background and set work. And I don't blame the actors. They did fine for what it was. Especially Lizzy Caplan. She actually created and developed a character with progression and background. She was the highlight of the film. 

Look, I get there's gotta be a plot. But "we have to go back for my ex-girlfriend" and no explanation, and everyone follows him? I'll let that go. What I won't let go is the distraction about the tiny parasites that have lethal bites but disappear. What I won't let go is the 4 foot piece of rebar that apparently isn't the murder weapon for the ex-girlfriend. Especially that...come on! They pull her off this rebar that she's been stuck through in a collapsed building full of demonaliens, bleeding out for hours and she's so fine with it, her shirt heals.

Nope. She's fine now. Whatev.

My biggest problem beyond all of this is the purely found footage perspective. The shaky cam is unwatchable for extended periods of time. I can get past some shaky, but a movie made entirely of it? Dramamine should come free. On top of that, you already know that everyone is dead. All of them. Anyone who's touching the camera? Dead. Friends with the camera person? Dead first. The living people that you're watching don't find the footage. So you're forced into an immediate detachment from any of the "main" characters, and you're left with a faint hope that the side character you like might get away while you know they won't.

So in the end, this was a hype movie about a hype monster of hype before Abrams was as much of a household name. It starts out with no characters, and a great amount of tension. As the movie progresses, the characters rise and the rest of the movie falls. This makes the apex of the movie in the subway tunnels, which is just about 43 minutes too early in an 85 minute movie.

If they had told me I could use calculus to insult a multimillion dollar production, I still would've hated it

No. I do not recommend this movie unless you are thinking this was some cultural phenomenon you want to experience years after the fact. Or maybe if you're doing a study of Abram's projects for a class. Even then, probably not worth it. You will save time, effort, and alcohol if you just do a web search for "cloverfield monster". Probably the same amount of laughs too. Worth the "rent others, get one free" deal, but not much else.