Cloverfield- **
Directed by Matt Reeves
January 20, 2008
Directed by Matt Reeves
January 20, 2008
No other party could possibly be any worse than what’s depicted in the new fanboy hyped Youtube generational movie Cloverfield. We’re introduced to a bunch of measly twentysomething-year-olds and just like that we’re supposed to be on board with them throughout the movie, thank God it’s only 84 minutes in length. Six characters are introduced to us within the first scene, the first fifteen minutes, which is just like watching one of my drunk friends videotaping a party scene he was attending a week ago which is full of cheesy jokes and, of course, plenty of drama that seems nothing less than thrashed upon us.
Two brothers; Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and the other one being whom in which the party is being thrown for because he’s leaving Manhattan to take a job in Japan, Jason (Mike Vogel) the cool dude, who also manages to conquer an insurmountable task as that James Bond himself would be jealous of. Let me round up the rest of the usual suspects: The crappy and ignorant Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) who doesn’t really want to be at this party in the first place (I don’t blame her), the man behind the handheld camera, that we the audience rely on to show us the action, is Hud (T.J. Miller) as he trudges through the people just to get testimonials about Jason, we can thank Lily (Jessica Lucas) the woman who got this whole party started, and lets not forget the drama part: Jason’s ex-girlfriend Beth (Odette Yustman) who he has an argument with just moments before the attack happens about her bringing her new boyfriend to the party, this sets up that insurmountable task. When director Matt Reeves believes he has accomplished his daunting task of “developing” the characters, if you can call it that, he throws the attack at them, which means he shoves it down the our throats, and hopes we can feel sorry for these shallow characters as they try to survive.
On the bright side, the film really works with in the first ten minutes of the attack. To ignite a series of unfortunate events a ship near the Statue of Liberty gets bombarded and before our characters know it the earth begins to rumble like an earthquake, a scary scene which has fireballs coming from the sky crashing into down town Manhattan, and of course that image of the Statue Liberty’s head getting hurled right in front of the parties spot. Of course watching this occur I’m nervous as well as anxious at this point. The Brooklyn Bridge even sees some cool action. Right here, is were Cloverfield had me at its luxury but low and behold as the movie progresses, in its short time, the attacks become less scary and more mandatory. The quick glimpses of the creature worked as it stirred my imagination of what this could possibly be rather than when we get the full view of it that really crushes my interest and creativity. Hey, maybe they didn’t need to show the monster at all. Blair Witch worked wonders with that technique. Made us all believers!
The only inventive idea Cloverfield, its director, and producer J.J. Abrams, who created one of TV’s greatest shows in Lost, had been to capture this rapture happening on a handheld-queasy-happy-for-the-entire-movie-camera (Blair Witch style) showing us information as it unfolds in real time. Hud does a fantastic job at never letting the camera get damaged and that battery sure is splendid not to run out. We do not know more or any less than our main characters do and see all that occurs through Hud. Though I do know that this movie doesn’t quite live up to its hype!
Two brothers; Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and the other one being whom in which the party is being thrown for because he’s leaving Manhattan to take a job in Japan, Jason (Mike Vogel) the cool dude, who also manages to conquer an insurmountable task as that James Bond himself would be jealous of. Let me round up the rest of the usual suspects: The crappy and ignorant Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) who doesn’t really want to be at this party in the first place (I don’t blame her), the man behind the handheld camera, that we the audience rely on to show us the action, is Hud (T.J. Miller) as he trudges through the people just to get testimonials about Jason, we can thank Lily (Jessica Lucas) the woman who got this whole party started, and lets not forget the drama part: Jason’s ex-girlfriend Beth (Odette Yustman) who he has an argument with just moments before the attack happens about her bringing her new boyfriend to the party, this sets up that insurmountable task. When director Matt Reeves believes he has accomplished his daunting task of “developing” the characters, if you can call it that, he throws the attack at them, which means he shoves it down the our throats, and hopes we can feel sorry for these shallow characters as they try to survive.
On the bright side, the film really works with in the first ten minutes of the attack. To ignite a series of unfortunate events a ship near the Statue of Liberty gets bombarded and before our characters know it the earth begins to rumble like an earthquake, a scary scene which has fireballs coming from the sky crashing into down town Manhattan, and of course that image of the Statue Liberty’s head getting hurled right in front of the parties spot. Of course watching this occur I’m nervous as well as anxious at this point. The Brooklyn Bridge even sees some cool action. Right here, is were Cloverfield had me at its luxury but low and behold as the movie progresses, in its short time, the attacks become less scary and more mandatory. The quick glimpses of the creature worked as it stirred my imagination of what this could possibly be rather than when we get the full view of it that really crushes my interest and creativity. Hey, maybe they didn’t need to show the monster at all. Blair Witch worked wonders with that technique. Made us all believers!
The only inventive idea Cloverfield, its director, and producer J.J. Abrams, who created one of TV’s greatest shows in Lost, had been to capture this rapture happening on a handheld-queasy-happy-for-the-entire-movie-camera (Blair Witch style) showing us information as it unfolds in real time. Hud does a fantastic job at never letting the camera get damaged and that battery sure is splendid not to run out. We do not know more or any less than our main characters do and see all that occurs through Hud. Though I do know that this movie doesn’t quite live up to its hype!
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