Cloverfield

“Some Thing Has Found Us.”

 

First and foremost I would like to apologize for the absence of movie reviews I have posted lately. Things have been getting a little ridiculous around these parts for me. I have a full schedule of classes, work, relationships, an internship and partying to work with right now. I’ve also just started a new month long calorie counting experiment with Steve. I’ve had my plate rather full and often don’t feel like eating much. I realize that these aren’t very good excuses for not delivering something that I have promised to the site, but I will try to work harder at bringing more reviews in a timely manner. Now that that is taken care of, let’s turn our attention to this new issue of At The Drive in.

I first watched Cloverfield a few weeks ago, it’s not completely fresh in my memory but I still remember exactly how I felt about the film. It was simply AMAZING. I would argue that it might be my favorite Sci-Fi movie of all time. It is definitely up there and would have to compete with Stephen King’s The Mist for the number one spot. The realm of Sci-Fi is looking pretty good as of late. In the last six months or so 30 Days of Night drained my blood, I Am Legend was more than decent (not to mention a serious acting buffet from Will Smith), The Mist was an incredibly powerful masterpiece and now Cloverfield, which was stunning. Usually Sci-Fi movies don’t turn out this well in this quantity.

Simply put, Cloverfield is about a group of friends who are having a going away party for one of their other friends. Everything seems like another hazy night in New York until a monster begins to attack the city. Their night becomes a quest for survival and finding a way out of New York before the city is reduced to rubble.

I am fully aware of how ridiculous, lame and Godzilla sounding this movie is, but I assure you, dear reader, this movie is anything but. Cloverfield is by far, let me repeat that so that I am not misread, Cloverfield is BY FAR the most intense film I have seen in a very, very long time. The action that is packs, the emotions it throws and the thrills it damn near chokes you with are of a breed that I have never seen the likes of in a film before.

The entire film is shot from a first person point of view on a hand-held camera that anyone with about $500 could purchase at Best Buy. This, of course, gives it an incredible shaking and as far from a polished and produced look as you can get. In fact, it gets so shaky at times that a few audience members of the screening I was at left in the middle of it ( I would assume to motion sickness, but maybe they just didn’t like the movie ). The camera work and the lack of a lot of studio lighting gave the film a really great, and what I would assume to be realistic, atmosphere for when a monster is attack a major city. It really adds to the intensity, even though there were times when I just wanted the camera to move two inches in one way or another.

I can definitely see what a lot of people disliked Cloverfield. It is something totally new, that as far as I know has only been seen in The Blair Witch Project before. It is not a smooth film by any means, it is very gritty and raw and let’s face it…it’s about a monster attacking New York. It is nowhere near a typical Hollywood blockbuster and it is not by any stretch of imagination a happy, feel-good movie. I don’t mean to give anything away for those of you that haven’t seen it yet – so don’t read into this too much, but the ending is fairly ambiguous. This is something that I know drives people bonkers and I absolutely love it. Hitchcock would be proud!

I only have two grievances with Cloverfield. One is that the battery life of the hand-held camera was absolutely ridiculous. My camera dies after like forty-five minutes if it isn’t plugged in and they were running around for most of the twilight hours. My other problem was that I’m entirely convinced that If a monster was attacking my city if I would have the fortitude to keep a hold of a camcorder, especially for that long and after a few things happen. My own rebuttal to that would be, how can we know what anyone would do if a giant monster was laying waste to our city?

A few people have mentioned how they didn’t think that people would act the way that they did in the film. Again, I would tell them to refer to the end of the above paragraph. I would also say that different people have different ways of coping with stress and extreme situations. Some people will try to take control of everything that is in their control to compensate for what the can’t control and others might crack jokes – the list could go on for a very long time.

I thought Cloverfield was very realistic. If they would have shot it like any other normal Hollywood blockbuster, it would not have worked out and I would probably be telling everyone to riot, burn buildings down, punch babies and curse the film makers instead of making sweet passionate, cinematic love to it. I cannot recommend this film enough, especially if you like great movies. I hope that this film sets the bar for future Sci-Fi films and that they continue to meet this bar. I give Cloverfield 5 out of 5 really awesome party nights turned into really awful nights filled with monsters and fighting for survival!

Until Next Time – Stay Young, You’ll Live Longer.

NEXT REVIEW: Death Sentence