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Directed by Written by Starring Presented by 84 minutes |
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CLOVERFIELD Review
The film is supposed to make you believe that we're watching the unedited footage of a videotape from a hand held camera that belongs to Robert Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David), a young man about to embark on a new career in Japan. To celebrate, his brother Jason (Mike Vogel) uses the camera to document Robert's going away party, giving the camera to their best friend Hud (T.J. Miller) who shoots everyone at the party. Before this footage, we see that a month before on the tape, Robert has slept with longtime friend Beth (Odette Yusman) and the two haven't spoken to each other about how they feel. At the party, a fight ensues. Beth storms out. Robert feels bad. Then a giant monster invades New York City and knocks the head off the Statue Of Liberty. Confused and horrified, the three men along with Jason's girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas) and party goer Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) who Hud has a thing for, stick together in an attempt to flee the city. Robert then gets a message from Beth saying that's she trapped and in pain, so instead of fleeing the city, Robert decides to go to Beth to get her out and his friends follow suit, all the while the camera is running. As Hud says, "People are gonna know how it all went down." The film feels like a combination of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and GODZILLA (the 1998 remake mostly due to its location) and despite the way it is filmed from the point of view of the camera, it's not an original story at all. It does show how far technology has come in how the visuals look. To me, I felt it looked a little too perfect in some spots with a little shaky stuff thrown in for the vibe, but the way certain scenes were evenly lit and the moments of cut off in the film seemed to clean, suspending the belief that this was a real situation. There are however some very tense moments that do work, the best example being the first strike of the monster on the streets and the reaction of the survivors to the chaos around them. Being that I live near New York and was in the city on 9/11/01, it did have that feeling and it does lie heavily on the film's overall theme. The monster itself is done perfectly here however, showing just glimpses, and the monster is terrifying. Bigger than skyscrapers, you never really get a clear look at it, but you see just enough to know that you better get the hell away from it. It's good to see that there's no "evil government" subplot even after the military comes to try to destroy it; they're just as confused as the residents. We do get some wonderful visual shots of the battle between this monster and the military, as well as some excellent sound design in a moment where the friends sneak into a subway while they hear the destruction above them. The acting in this film is pretty good, with some decent performances. T.J. Miller is mostly behind the camera so he is mainly heard, and provides some humorous and annoying moments, but since he's representing the audience you'll most likely be thinking what he's saying. It's the most important role of the film and Miller succeeds. The rest of the cast are fine but not entirely memorable. It's hard not to compare this to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT as there are many similarities. They both deal with the environment around them in a desperate situation and that makes it work. However the one flaw that CLOVERFIELD has in conjunction with BLAIR WITCH is that because you know that this is based on "found footage," you already know the fate of the characters. Seeing it unfold is interesting, but makes it only good for one viewing in the theater. When it comes on DVD, there's no doubt people will be pausing the scenes with the monster to get a look at it, but Reeves takes care of that with a close up view of the monster at an unlikely point in the film. I would also say that for a PG-13 film, there are a few very gory moments that I'm surprised got past the censors. I guess since it's Abrams, it's OK. So why is it called CLOVERFIELD? Why does the government have this footage in their files? Will they get off the island (sorry, wrong Abrams project. Oh wait, Manhattan's an island. Never mind.)? None of this is answered, but if you've followed the career of Abrams, you never get that anyway. In all, CLOVERFIELD is what it is, a giant monster movie done in a style we've seen before, but will bring the genre back to life. It's not memorable and it's not original, but it is an interesting film that's worth checking out for 84 minutes. It's not worth the hype at all, but it's worth a look. However, if you've bought in to the hype, prepare to be disappointed. CLOVERFIELD: 6 Out Of 10 Maggots |
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