Cloverfield

After six months of waiting since we all first saw the Cloverfield trailer before Transformers last July, after weeks of viral videos, commercials, trailers, and contests, the moment finally arrived. Cloverfield opened to a gargantuan $41 million this weekend (it should do 50 through MLK Day tomorrow– and it only cost about 15 to make!), after tracking at a mere 20 earlier this week. Some call it another lame brain monster movie, some call it a masterpiece. I’d say it falls somewhere in the middle, with an advantage towards the masterpiece side. Allow me to explain:

Watching Cloverfield is a one-of-a-kind moviegoing experience. I’ve never seen or felt anything like it in my life. From the moment the trailers end to the moment you walk out of the theater, every second is a well-considered part of the Cloverfield experience. This is definitely a movie you MUST see in theaters; a home viewing will simply not suffice. The silence during the Bad Robot logo, the momentary horror that your theater’s projector must be broken– everything is calculated to give you the most complete and unique experience possible. Right off that bat, I was hooked.

Then the footage itself began. If you haven’t heard by now, Cloverfield is a sort of Blair Witch/Godzilla mash-up. It’s a straight-up monster movie, but told from the home video camera perspective of a small group of 20-somethings fighting for survival as New York City is obliterated by a ridiculous monster. I think its a brilliant take on the monster movie and an innovative way to spice up a tired genre–its J.J. Abrams in a nutshell. If you’ve ever seen Lost, you know that the most brilliant and essential contributions of that program are in the way the stories are told. Abrams is a master at redefining generic boundaries, at uncovering new storytelling ground, discovering interesting modes of narrative discourse, and of playing with our expectations.

Our heroes are Rob, Beth, Hud, Lisa, Jason and Marlena, six attractive New Yorkers who must brave the literal destruction of their city at the hands…er, claws of this giant monster. We get to know these affable folks in the film’s first half-hour, and we are periodically treated to more shots of Beth & Rob’s day trip to Coney Island whenever Hud, our videographer, stops recording or accidentally cuts away. The build up to the monster’s attack is perfectly executed, as it really has only 2 objectives, both of which are met: we care about the characters (enough to be shocked when something bad happens to them), and we don’t see the monster coming.

But once he does, the action doesn’t stop. As we discover early on, Abrams and crew aren’t scared to pick off any of our heroes, and it’s immediately clear that no one is safe. There are some truly terrifying moments, some laughable ones; likewise, there’s some terrific dialogue (both funny and realistic) and there’s also some cheesy love dialogue between Beth and Rob.

The thing that bugged me most about this movie are the few times I was asked to suspend my disbelief too far. Ok, I can embrace the fact there is a monster, terrific. And sure, I can embrace the idea that these friends would all rather stick together and try to rescue Beth than head out on their own to safety. I’ll even embrace the idea that this video camera can survive explosions, helicopter crashes, monster jaws and more. But can I embrace the fact that a girl who had an iron spike driven through her chest can get up and sprint down 57 flights of stairs and then across New York City? Can I embrace the idea of people getting up and walking out of a helicopter crash unscathed? The answer is of course No, and sadly, these moments really took me out of the film. Yes, it was very cool to see a helicopter crash from the inside perspective of one of its passengers, but to then see a bunch of people crawl out of it and start sprinting away? Please.

One complaint I’ve heard is about the film’s shaky handheld camerawork, or what Roger Ebert called “the queasy cam.” I, however, was not bugged by this device at all, as it essentially IS the movie. I might have been momentarily disoriented when Hud would run with the camera facing the ground, not focused on anything, but it was well worth it. Director Matt Reeves does a sensational job fulfilling all the various tasks required by the story, while stuck in an essentially cut-less type of movie. Everything that needs to be shown on camera is worked in naturally: private emotional moments, humor, suspense, terror– all beautifully captured via this shaky home video camera.

At a running time of 84 minutes, the film is of a perfect length. Get in, get terrorized by a giant monster, get out. Even a minute longer, and we’d start to get antsy; there’s only so much death defying monster action we can watch before we’ve had our fill, and I’d wager that many people had their fill around the 75 minute mark. If you couldn’t guess, I really enjoyed this movie, and as I think back on it now, I find myself even more excited about it than I was before. This film hits you hard on a number of levels: visually, viscerally, and emotionally. Despite my best efforts, I found myself really pulling for Rob & co. to live because I was scared for them and so sympathetic towards them. Watching their futile attempts to survive and protect each other while facing almost certain death was both incredibly exciting and incredibly, well, sad.

This gritty, in-your-face movie defies expectations, bends genre boundaries, and goes where no film has gone before. It’s man vs. monster, told from right down in the trenches, and through pop culture, we’ve been trained historically to expect that man will always prevail.

Can love and friendship and bravery conquer uncontrollable forces of destruction this time? Take 84 minutes and find out for yourself.

Grade: B