Review: Cloverfield

‘Tis fitting, perhaps, that my 50th review on this so-called “blog” be for “Cloverfield,” a movie by J.J. Abrams, who is also doing the new “Star Trek” movie opening on Christmas Day, 2008….but more on that later…

The idea is that Abrams, on a visit to Japan with his kid, noticed that Godzilla is a major part of Japanese culture, but America doesn’t really have a “Godzilla”… “King Kong” was kinda close, but not the same… Abrams set out to make his own “Godzilla” movie, and certainly in his own way.

The film is set during a party for Rob, who’s leaving for Japan for his new job. Hud is charged with videotaping people’s “farewell” wishes for Rob. Suddenly, the party-goers feel what they think is an earthquake, but soon find out that “something” is attacking New York City, only a few blocks from where they stand.

The movie goes on from there, with a small group from that party setting out to get off the island and save their friends that are still trapped. The entire movie is told from the perspective of this group, and visualized through this “handicam”. It looks very much like “The Blair Witch Project,” except that this movie is a). better financed, and b). actually good. So, as such, those of you that get a little queesy with the “shaky cam” views during movies may have some difficulty, but the movie sure seemed to be a bit more steady than “Blair Witch” was.

I thought it was really good, and provided more suspense than I expected walking into it. Considering that the movie is told entirely from this small group’s perspective, you wouldn’t expect to get good views of this giant monster attacking the city (and initially you don’t!), but Abrams and his director (Matt Reeves) cleverly allow the audience to catch glimpses, and then a full-on view at the climax. The effects were quite good and, most surprisingly, the sound was awesome. Frequently in sci-fi movies, you’ll have surround sound, but not like this! Since you were seeing the movie through the eyes of this camera, that also means that you heard everything that the camera heard, meaning that you feel like you were the one holding the camera the whole time. Thus, if you hear something behind you, the camera has to turn around and look. Since you don’t have that 3rd person view (ever!), you (the viewer) are more likely to identify with Hud, the guy holding the camera.

The other neat part is that the story unfolds for this group wandering through Manhattan, so you never really know what the “creature” is, why it’s there, where it came from, etc…and honestly, you don’t care. You identify with the characters (completely unknown actors, all of which do a great job) and find things out as they do. Sure, there are questions at the end, but nothing that really must be answered. If you see it, however, pay attention at the very beginning to the text on the screen – there were some idiots in the theater that didn’t read it at the beginning and were surprised at the ending.

So yeah, the movie was good. If you don’t get queesy watching the “shaky cam” for 1.5 hours (and it isn’t all shaky!), then this is worth your time.

Edit: Apparently, in the very last shot of the movie (Rob and Beth on a ferris wheel), there’s something in the water behind them…likely kinda hard to see… If you see the movie, watch for that and tell me what it is! I didn’t know about this when I saw the movie, and thus wasn’t watching for it…grrr…

On a side-note, the teaser trailer for “Star Trek XI” precedes the movie…and believe you me, I won’t mind bypassing my presents on Xmas morning to make sure I’m in line for the first showing… The teaser is awesome and it’ll be up here as soon as a good copy of it is available (YouTube has a really crappy quality version right now…).

It’s a good year to be a geek 🙂