A Field of OMG!!!! Cloverfield (Movie) Review
Posted on
Sunday, January 20, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Cloverfield is not a film. Sure, it's being shown in a theater, and you have to pay movie prices for it. It's filmed like a movie, and you can even get popcorn. But it's not a film. Cloverfield is an experience, a theme-park ride on the big-screen and I loved just about every minute of it.
First off, let's dispense with the caveats. This is not something one should expect to watch for plot, character development or any of the things one normally sees in a movie. The plot is paper-thin. J.J. Abrams, the producer, describes the movie as "Godzilla meets the Blair Witch Project" and it is vital that this is taken into account when experiencing the movie. I'm not spoiling anything by explaining that the plot is as simple as simple can be. Gigantic, unexplained monster beats the ever-living monkey fuck out of New York. Said city-beating is filmed by a bunch of impossibly beautiful, extremely lucky twenty-somethings with questionable logical faculties and a handheld camera. That's it. There's nothing more to it. There are no grandiose explanations about the origins of the monster, no Braveheart-esque jingoist proclamations exhorting hordes of red-shirts to victory, just lots of "OMFGIT'SCOMINGRIGHTTOWARDSUS" broken up by lots of "BOOMSMASHRAAARRRRGURGLESQUISH." There will likely be cult movements built up around trying to explain all the unexplained things in the film, but none of it will be necessary.
Cloverfield isn't about story. It's about the visceral reactions to impossible situations. The audience is invited to experience insanity alongside the characters by way of the very immediate stylistic viewpoint of the handheld camera. The audience almost becomes a fifth main character, so immersive is the atmosphere afforded by this choice of cinematography. That's why I term the movie a theme-park ride. It's not a movie to be analyzed, it's a movie to be experienced. Were this movie filmed any other way, it'd fall flat on its face. The characters are either irritating, such as the camera man, Hud, or at best, archetypal automatons in service of limited motivations. They could be any man or woman on the street fleeing from a gigantic monster eating the city. Filmed in typical style, they just wouldn't be that interesting. But in handycam world, the audience is running right alongside them, ducking their heads as tank shells and tracer fire goes overhead. It's one of the few movies that actually made me move around in my seat, straining to find a better angle to see the monster, or reacting to something that happened to the side of the camera. The digital work done on the movie's effects is something extraordinary, probably aided by the low-quality of the handheld camera. Everything meshed seamlessly, from ruined buildings in New York to giant monster standing directly over the cameraman.
The movie will sadly lose something significant in the translation to DVD. The combination of an excellent surround sound design and the gigantic film screen make the movie immersive. On a smaller television screen, even with the best surround sound system, I think the movie will lose a huge amount of impact. In that sense, it fails as a movie. But it is worth watching in the theater. Just don't expect loose narrative ends to be tied up, or to have any idea of what exactly happened once it's over. Just sit back and soak in the atmosphere, let yourself react on instinct instead of thinking on it too much, just like you would on a rollercoaster.
I'd give the movie 3.5 stars out of 4, but only if viewed in the theater. Outside of that venue, it would probably rate 3 stars. It's still an impressive achievement, especially the CGI/real person mesh and sound design, but lacking the in-your-face immersion of the big screen and being thin on narrative.
First off, let's dispense with the caveats. This is not something one should expect to watch for plot, character development or any of the things one normally sees in a movie. The plot is paper-thin. J.J. Abrams, the producer, describes the movie as "Godzilla meets the Blair Witch Project" and it is vital that this is taken into account when experiencing the movie. I'm not spoiling anything by explaining that the plot is as simple as simple can be. Gigantic, unexplained monster beats the ever-living monkey fuck out of New York. Said city-beating is filmed by a bunch of impossibly beautiful, extremely lucky twenty-somethings with questionable logical faculties and a handheld camera. That's it. There's nothing more to it. There are no grandiose explanations about the origins of the monster, no Braveheart-esque jingoist proclamations exhorting hordes of red-shirts to victory, just lots of "OMFGIT'SCOMINGRIGHTTOWARDSUS" broken up by lots of "BOOMSMASHRAAARRRRGURGLESQUISH." There will likely be cult movements built up around trying to explain all the unexplained things in the film, but none of it will be necessary.
Cloverfield isn't about story. It's about the visceral reactions to impossible situations. The audience is invited to experience insanity alongside the characters by way of the very immediate stylistic viewpoint of the handheld camera. The audience almost becomes a fifth main character, so immersive is the atmosphere afforded by this choice of cinematography. That's why I term the movie a theme-park ride. It's not a movie to be analyzed, it's a movie to be experienced. Were this movie filmed any other way, it'd fall flat on its face. The characters are either irritating, such as the camera man, Hud, or at best, archetypal automatons in service of limited motivations. They could be any man or woman on the street fleeing from a gigantic monster eating the city. Filmed in typical style, they just wouldn't be that interesting. But in handycam world, the audience is running right alongside them, ducking their heads as tank shells and tracer fire goes overhead. It's one of the few movies that actually made me move around in my seat, straining to find a better angle to see the monster, or reacting to something that happened to the side of the camera. The digital work done on the movie's effects is something extraordinary, probably aided by the low-quality of the handheld camera. Everything meshed seamlessly, from ruined buildings in New York to giant monster standing directly over the cameraman.
The movie will sadly lose something significant in the translation to DVD. The combination of an excellent surround sound design and the gigantic film screen make the movie immersive. On a smaller television screen, even with the best surround sound system, I think the movie will lose a huge amount of impact. In that sense, it fails as a movie. But it is worth watching in the theater. Just don't expect loose narrative ends to be tied up, or to have any idea of what exactly happened once it's over. Just sit back and soak in the atmosphere, let yourself react on instinct instead of thinking on it too much, just like you would on a rollercoaster.
I'd give the movie 3.5 stars out of 4, but only if viewed in the theater. Outside of that venue, it would probably rate 3 stars. It's still an impressive achievement, especially the CGI/real person mesh and sound design, but lacking the in-your-face immersion of the big screen and being thin on narrative.
Labels: Movies
posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:39 AM
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