Cloverfield Review - Help Us.

You always worry about the movies that are certain to be a victim of their own hype. No matter how good they are, they will sustain some damages. Whether it be deserved or not, there will be some wounds inflicted from all the madness. You can't bungee without getting a little thigh burn.

Cloverfield, however, was all it promised to be and maybe even some more. It's an intense, full-throttle ride which is certain to be understood and adored by those who enjoy that genre which is disaster/apocalyptic flicks.

Where Cloverfield was the strongest was how it let us see what was going on within Manhattan while never straying from our core group of characters. As you can tell from trailers, this is all shot handheld, by one of those caught in the midst of the madness. You would think this would limit it or, at the most, would give way to some pretty goofy tricks in order to show the monster. However, some of the tricks it used were pretty ingenious and believable. Capturing shots from television broadcasts in the windows of electronics stores and one terrifying scene using the camera's nightvision feature, Cloverfield does its best to keep us in the loop without throwing us out of the story.

Another strength that Cloverfield has is its characters. We don't get to know them that well, but it doesn't matter because they only have a little while to tell us their stories. Despite the little time we are able to spend with them, we are still able to emote with them. Anyone who has ever been on one of these rides, whether it's a good-ole Romero flick or a Stephen King novel, knows that very few, if any, come out of these situations alive. We brace ourselves for the inevitable. We will lose some of our storytellers. We may even lose all of them.

But a good disaster/horror flick makes you shed your inhibitions over getting too involved and jump right in there with them and Cloverfield's first person narrative makes that jump quite easy.

At the center of the story is a love story that has already been riddled with problems. But it's those problems that lead us into the labyrinth of madness.

Spoilers follow, people. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Rob Hawkins, that poor guy we've seen in the trailers who should have been on his way to Japan, is at the heart of Cloverfield. During our short stint at Rob's surprise bon voyage party, we discover that, despite the fact that the romance seemed to be blooming at the beginning of the story (courtesy of a bit of tape that was soon to be erased by the Cloverfield incident), Rob's romance with a late arrival to the party, Beth, is looking as if it's done for. There's an argument. Beth storms out. Soon, Rob is lamenting about letting her go when we hear those first thuds that signal the beginning of the end.

What begins as an exodus out of Manhattan turns into a run back through the heart of the city as Rob receives a distressed message from Beth. And the remainder of the Rob's close circle follow him on his quest.

But let me guess? You're not here to hear about Rob or a love story or any of that other noise. You want to know about the monster. Of course you do. It's all anyone can talk about.

The monster is complete madness. If H.R. Giger and H.P. Lovecraft somehow mingled DNA and had a baby and that baby grew up to be a man who hit the acid too hard and one day had a flashback that caused him to blitz out and began to attempt to put the fruits of this blitz on paper, you'd have yourself the Cloverfield monster.

Hard to imagine, isn't it? That's because if you tried to simply imagine it on your own without any knowledge of what it might actually be, you'd probably never come up with a clear vision of what the Cloverfield monster actually is. He is madness and disturbia on legs. At least, I think they were legs. He is something that could have been birthed from terror herself.

You see the monster throughout the film. Swiftly, glimpses. It isn't until the last fifteen minutes that you get your first dead-on, terrifying look into the eyes of the monster.

The film is an intense ride through a distressed Manhattan. Some scenes, no doubt, will evoke moments of terror based on real fears and not those that come in the form of a monster. One thing I did really find refreshing was the treatment of the U.S. Military in the film. You see them only briefly, but when you do, they are heroes, on the front lines, attempting their best to shield civilians from the madness which they must face head on.

There are subtle wink winks throughout the film and, if you stay until after the credits, listen closely. That's as much as I'll say.

Overall, the film is one that I think lived up to the hype that surrounded it. It was an enjoyable film with enough humanity to give it just the edge it needed to make it successful.

Now, J.J. - as an avid fan of Lost, I just have one final note to add to this review. If the conclusion of Lost is this thrilling, fans will no doubt be licking your boots for years to come. Just one word of advice: don't kill off Locke!

Seriously, if Locke had been on Manhattan Island instead of that other island, that big ass monster would have been bagged and tagged before sun-up.

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If you want to read even more about Cloverfield, visit my Squidoo lens I've been keeping up ever since that fateful day we all saw the trailer before Transformers: http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/workshop/cloverfieldmovie

And for those of you looking for Cloverfield Promotional merchandise, it's here.

Comments

[kamdou]

Very interesting site that I find rich, pleasant and well organized!
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[Fortyseven]

Just saw it this evening -- fuckin' thrill ride. You're 100% dead on here.

[B-Sol]

I agree, the movie TOTALLY lived up to expectations. Quite a rarity.

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