Cloverfield
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour, 24 minutes
Directed by: Matt Reeves
Starring:
Michael Stahl-David - Rob Hawkins
Odette Yustman - Beth McIntyre
Jessica Lucas - Lily Ford
Mike Vogel - Jason Hawkins
T.J. Miller - Hud Platt
Lizzy Caplan - Marlena Diamond
There's a difference between hype and obfuscation, although the two can, and usually do, play into one another. Cloverfield seemed to be all about the hype. When it premiered its teaser back in July with Transformers, it refused to even give its name and continued its game as long as possible with viral marketing and letting people guess what this movie was about. At most we learned it was about a monster attack on Manhattan filmed entirely with a DV camera. It was Blair Witch meets Godzilla so at worse we could prepare for crappy acting, motion sickness, and shitty special effects. My theory wasn't about the monster or the film but that all this marketing was to obfuscate that there wasn't much there, there.
But I was wrong. At a brisk 84 minutes, Cloverfield is a monster movie like you've never seen before. It's loud, terrifying, and though not without its faults, a must-see movie.
The film opens and we see that this video is marked for the Department of Defense and the tape was found in Central Park (also, look for a brief flash of the Dharma logo in the lower right-hand corner; a nod to producer J.J. Abrams other sci-fi-mystery-thriller, Lost). But then we're introduced to our protagonists and in many ways, Cloverfield could be a very conventional film. We meet our characters, we quickly learn their relationships, and then the disaster strikes and it's then that the DV camera becomes more than just a gimmick but a way to experience this terror in a way that we can no longer separate ourselves from it and just keep telling ourselves, "It's just a movie,"
What makes this film different from its closest cousin, 1999's The Blair Witch Project (other than better actors and camera work that is realistic without being vomit-inducing)
is that it lives in a post-9/11 world. When we first see the explosion and the head of the Statue of Liberty fly into the street, we can overhear someone say something along the lines of "Is it happening again?”" But we also see people taking out their camera phones and snapping pictures of Lady Liberty's head. And one of the most repeated comments about the horror of 9/11 was, "It was like something out of a movie," That was the best way we knew how to describe it; to even begin to comprehend what had happened. And while voyeurism may try to separate us from unfathomable events, it actually makes us a part of them and creates a connection. And as the horror continues, we want to push that voyeurism further. No matter how terrible the circumstances may be, we can't look away because now we're a part of it and we can't sever that connection. Like quicksand, the more we struggle, the faster we sink.
That may all seem way too heavy for what is essentially a monster movie with plenty of fantastic scares. And what scares the most isn't seeing the monster head on. In fact, the movie almost notes how unrewarding such a reveal is and that's why the marketing campaign wasn't a matter of trying to sell what wasn't there, but being faithful to what the movie was.
And no, it isn't perfect. Our cameraman, Hud (In videogames, there's always a HUD, or "Heads Up Display"), cracks one too many jokes to cut the tension, and while that's realistic enough, it can distracting. The relationships aren't always convincing. And there's one too many concessions made to making sure Hud always has the camera and even when he's running, we're seeing as if it's strapped to his head, rather than looking down. This isn't to mention that there are loads of cuts which are made to raise the tension and the action as well as the world's best camcorder battery. But when you're in a dark subway tunnel and you see loads of rats running away from something and you're telling the characters on the screen not to turn on the night-vision for fear of what they might see, all of those drawbacks don't really seem to matter.
There are rare occasions where obfuscation is beneficial and the hype is real. Cloverfield is a rarity.
Words by
Matt Goldberg
1.18.08