Good
Googly Goo, the way I suffer for the faithful … Chitlins, I have to tell
you that your beloved elephant–head is dealing with a mastodon-sized
stomach-ache right now. In my quest to bring you celluloid
enlightenment, I’ve managed to come across a film that evidently must’ve
been produced by the pharmaceutical companies behind Dramamine and
Alka-Seltzer, both you will need in liberal amounts after watching the
wonder that is Cloverfield.
There’s so much to say, I don’t know where to
begin. Let’s do the rundown. A monster invades New York City and that’s
pretty much it. Throw in the dumbest, most vapid and vacuous, silly
characters ever created for a modern monster film, and you’ve got
Cloverfield. Yeah, this is how it’s gonna be…
What a catastrophe, and I don’t just mean the
damage the CGI creature renders unto Gotham. This is a movie that had
everything going for it; most notably a trusted, respected producer in
J.J. Abrams, who seems to get action and thrills judging from his
excellent TV series Alias and Lost, and the capably handled feature
Mission Impossible 3. Bearing my voluble adoration of the Mighty Green
Nipponese Lizard and my raves for the Korean creature thriller, The Host
(- click here to read the
many-tentacled praise), I was on board for a good old
scary monster movie. What I hadn’t foreseen was the complete lack of any
discernable plot other than ‘Let’s follow the stupid Yuppies as they
risk their lives and the lives of those around them for the sake of a
college crush”. Mind you, as the world collapses around the airheaded
young urban professionals, one of them always has the presence in mind
(- or the loss of it) to “document” everything that is happening
to them; clutching a digital camera despite being attacked by the
monster, running from the monster, crossing the rooftops of 60-storey
skyscrapers – doesn’t matter because “people are gonna want to
know... how it all went down.” Yeah …you know, Peter Arnett, even
the most hardcore CNN reporter would know to put down the freaking
camera and run like heck if something with sharp teeth and claws was
attacking your head. Oy.
That’s one thin premise to give us the shakiest
camerawork to ever curse a 40-foot screen. Comparisons to the hand-held
work in The Blair Witch Project are rife, but the one big difference
with the two films is that you were actually engrossed with the
happenings of Blair Witch, so that one could ostensibly ignore the
effect. Not so here, kids. The already nausea-inducing unsteadicam is
paired with an annoying, unending harangue of a voiceover by the Will
Ferrell-esque doofus of a documentarian. The character of Hud is the
most irritating thing to ever crawl off the short bus. Meant to be the
trademark goofy but loyal pal, his ceaseless nattering and desperately
unfunny court jester lo-jinks will make you scream like you’re the one
being attacked.
Hud, Jason, his fiancé, Lily, Beth, and a spunky
acquaintance (- and lust-object for Hud) named Marlena all gather
together in an offensively ghetto-ised loft somewhere in downtown
Manhattan to bid farewell to Rob. Rob was meant to be off the Tokyo for
some vague executive job, never mind that Rob looks like he’s still got
one foot in the frat house and sulks like a junior high-schooler after
an argument with longtime crush, Beth. After something like an
earthquake rattles the floor beneath their feet, they turn on the news
to discover that there has been a disturbance near the Statue of Liberty
in the East River, so they all head up to the roof of their luxury
tenement to try and see what’s happening (- don’t get me started on
the myriad of location mistakes). Sparks or something shoot out of
the sky and crash down to earth causing all the partygoers to
immediately run inside to the safety of the apartment and watch the TV
for further news, and… Oh no, I’m sorry, that’s something that would
have made sense and there’s no place for that in this flick. Nooo…instead
of taking shelter and battening down the hatches (- two words
everybody in New York City knows post-WTC, children – duct tape),
they all decide to run out into the street, wandering around talking to
each other until things really do start happening. Major landmarks
crumble and huge dust clouds very like those that engulfed the area
around the Twin Towers rise and gust down the yuppies’ street. Still,
they’d rather be outside adding to the confusion and bathing in toxic
dust instead of just going back into the apartment. As has been seen in
the TV spots for Cloverfield, the head of the Statue of Liberty comes
flying out of the sky pulling a bank shot off the buildings where the
hipsters are congregating and having seen the entire film I’m sure it’s
the monster playing dodgeball. If only he had better aim.
Deciding to make a run for it, Rob’s party makes
the decision to cross the Brooklyn Bridge: I know I said I wasn’t going
there, but I would like to point out for those not familiar with
Manhattan geography that three downtown bridges cross the East River
into Brooklyn, each one distanced less than a 10-minute walk from the
other. In what portents to be an illustrative show of the collective
brain power of Rob’s pals, they choose the bridge nearest to the where
the creature was first spotted, the one closest to the just-decapitated
Statue of Liberty. It is while slowly trudging across the span that Rob
stops in the middle of the bridge to get the call for help from Beth,
the one-night stand he dissed earlier in the evening. Apparently, she’s
trapped in her midtown apartment and can’t move. Why she would call Rob
and not, say, 911, or her wealthy parents, or the doorman of her luxury
high-rise, perhaps a parish priest, a plumber, or somebody nearby who
could actually help, I couldn't tell ya. But no, she rings Rob, who not
fifteen minutes before the fun and games began called her twenty shades
of ho. That’s the guy I’m sure is going to help me out of a jam! Of
course Rob, seized by guilt and lurve takes it upon himself to turn
around and trek all the way through the chaos to midtown. At that
precise moment, while everyone was waiting for Rob to get more bars on
his cell, the monster decides to do some landscaping. Apparently,
200-year old suspension bridges are just not in with the new, modern
Manhattan decor and so the losses to Rob’s crew begin. I love that it
all starts with his incredibly stupid decision to go play the hero and
save Beth.
I may
have said this before, but if there’s one thing that will get me to hate
your movie, it’s giving your characters actions that make them seem like
they’ve lived in a box all their lives. Never seen a horror film, never
lived through a catastrophic world-changing disaster… So when none of
his friends tell Rob that he’s an idiot or physically restrain him from
this suicide mission and instead cheerfully volunteer to join his
crusade like they’re going to the corner to get pizza, it’s not just bad
writing, it’s an insult to what precious intelligence I have left. The
group is constantly in situations where the monster is very literally
about to stomp them, but does that make them think, ‘Man, maybe I should
get out of here and leave the rescuing to the professionals’? Of course
it doesn’t. Even the perky Marlena, who is the only character in this
mess worth saving, somehow finds herself aimlessly following Rob’s band
of idiots, despite her assertion earlier at the party that she didn’t
know him well. They run into the safety of the New York subway system and decide to take a
healthy five mile hike from Soho to Beth’s midtown flat; Lily doing so
in a pair of 4-inch stiletto heels obviously made by Easy Spirit. For
some reason, the presence of rats in the subway tunnels surprises these
New Yorkers, so they are in no way prepared for the further fun and
games they face there.
They arrive at Columbus Circle lessened again in
number, but straight into the arms of the military that - insanely - are
intent on getting the strays to the nearest evacuation point. But wait,
Rob has to throw a tantrum when he’s told that the army won’t risk their
men to save his fling because they’re planning to bomb Manhattan island
in less than a half hour. Rob’s a little Terminator, he is, and once
he’s set his goal, nothing, not the realisation that Beth’s apartment
building is half-toppled, and certainly not the horrible, agonising death
of some friends is going to stop him. He manages to sweet-talk one
military guy into letting them go to Beth. Next on the plate of fun is
scaling the upright building - all 60-ish storeys of it - closest to the
leaning tower of Beth’s house and then traversing over the rooftop into
Beth’s waiting arms.
I swear, I’ve never cheered so hard for the monster
to win in my life.
J.J. Abrams has stated the idea for Cloverfield
originated with his fascination at the continued popularity of Godzilla,
and the resonance and staying power of the 54-year-old King of the
Monsters. That is what spurred him on to make a modern American monster.
Well, all righty then, but wouldn’t it have been a nice idea to actually
give your creation some kind of background? Or even to define what it
is? One of the reasons why Godzilla has remained relevant and appealing
is because he’s a walking stomping, fire-breathing reminder that war is
bad. Born of the nuclear bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he has a
relevant mythology. Even his younger cousin, Steve, from The Host was the
issue of the carelessness of some jerk chucking toxic chemicals into the
local river. Cloverfield’s amorphous CGI mess of a monster can’t be
bothered with anything as plebian as an explanation, or an origin, or a
point. The audience is just supposed to accept its appearance as a
random freak happening. Yaaaahh, no. Pull the other one, especially
since the plot you’ve contrived is thinner than Kleenex. I doubt that
knowing where the monster came from or why it was there would have saved
the film, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt. It would’ve given us
something to think about other than how much longer we have to watch
these moronic characters do stupid things? Why make a monster movie
about a creature the audience will find out nothing about?
The cast is mostly unknowns, and with the exception
of Lizzy Caplan as the acerbic Marlena, deserve to stay that way. I know
this isn’t Bergman, but rarely have I viewed a collection of
performances more amateurish or unconvincing. With the exception of
Marlena and despite an abundance of shrieking and running around, I
never believed for a moment that any of the characters were ever in
terror for their lives, as might’ve been appropriate when a monster of
varying size (- don’t ask) is poised to possibly eat them. The
one redeeming way I can look at this film is to question that perhaps
it’s a statement against annoying yuppies? Surely, the real monsters are
the gentrifying hipsters already infesting the city, and the creature is
the spirit of fading Manhattan come to get them off the island! The
creature does have a knack for showing up wherever Team Rob turns up…
That’s the only way I can forgive this cinematic catastrophe and yet
another pummeling of the fair Apple.
Was there anything salvageable about Cloverfield?
Well, the first glimpses of the monster are actually nicely creepy (-
until you find out there isn’t much more to it). The scene on the
Brooklyn Bridge was a full-on good moment, really exciting. There is one
edge-of-your-seat tunnel scene, but it’s gone all too quickly. Even
though I’ve made clear my vexation at Hollywood’s intensified trend of
beating on NYC (-
click here to read I Am Legend), I say, if you’re going to do
something, do it right. There were dozens of opportunities for
heart-stopping landmark destruction and urban obliteration, which would
certainly have made up for some of the character-based misery, but that
road is not taken. I would have liked to seen more from the streets as
to what the monster was doing, but thanks to the single-digicam
contrivance, we’re cheated of that possibility. And there were
possibilities here folks, but they were all wasted by director Matt
Reeves, whose only other feature effort was 1996’s The Pallbearer. Bad
decisions everywhere you look. Don’t make another one and pay to see
this movie.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva/Mighty Ganesha
January 15th, 2008
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