Cloverfield (2008)

O Masterpiece
X Excellent
O Rental
O OK
O Mediocrity
O Avoid

Review by Jason Pyles / January 19, 2008

In 1963 a man named Abraham Zapruder unwittingly shot one of the best known film clips in American history, a video document that came to be known as the Zapruder film. Historians and survivors of the ‘60s know that this film captured the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Every documentary filmmaker dreams of being in the right place at the right time and making his or her own Zapruder film. But if an average Joe saw catastrophic events, with the world within his camera lens toppling around him, would he be able to keep the camera rolling to document history in the making? “Cloverfield” asks us to believe that he would.

The cleverness of “Cloverfield” is that the film itself is the footage from a camcorder that films ordinary people experiencing extraordinary events. This is not new, of course, because we’ve seen this done in “The Blair Witch Project” (1999), for instance.

But “Cloverfield” goes farther by breathing energy into tired genres like the monster-attacking-the-city movie and the disaster film. In fact, it even incorporates a spin on the convention where the best day of the protagonist’s life is also the worst, such as we’ve seen in “High Noon” (1952).

“Cloverfield” opens by showing us that we’re about to watch a film that is now government property, evidence. The video has footage from two dates: a casual day of fun between two lovers and a surprise going-away party that is interrupted by a monster’s attack on New York City. The former footage is mostly recorded over by the latter.

Sadly, most people won’t appreciate “Cloverfield.” The reactions I heard in the theater, along with those posted on the IMDb.com support my suspicion. There will be two primary complaints: Naysayers will claim that the film doesn’t have enough closure. (But let’s remember that “Cloverfield” was produced by J.J. Abrams, and any fans of the TV show “LOST” know that he loves to pose more questions than he answers.) And second, the entire movie is filmed with a shaky, handheld camera, which may affect those who are sensitive to motion sickness.

But “Cloverfield” isn’t about answering questions or comfortable cinematography; it’s about experiencing this disaster first-hand for yourself. Through the camera’s subjective point of view, we feel as though we’re running for our lives, along with everyone else.

The cast doesn’t have readily recognizable, big-name actors. This adds to the realism of following one random group of New Yorkers through the terror. And the dialogue isn’t overly clever or witty, but in a film like this, repetitive dialogue and abundant screaming enhance its believability. And one great thing about our identifying with the camera is that our usual “audience omniscience” is eliminated. We encounter developments when the characters do.

And don’t worry, you’ll actually get to see the monster, and it’s a decent-looking creature whose tendency to rampage is the fiercest I’ve seen when compared to the likes of King Kong or Godzilla.

Much controversy has erupted over the promotional posters which show a headless Statue of Liberty. People have complained that the filmmakers are using Sept. 11 to promote their movie. But New York and L.A. getting leveled has been happening in the cinema for decades.

Granted, it is hard to forget about Sept. 11 while watching New York City take a thrashing, but the military seems to be just as destructive as the monster. It made me wonder if this movie is meant to be a metaphor for the Iraq War: a monster that even our mighty military can’t stop. I can’t say for sure, but I bet if the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan carried a handheld camera with them during battle, they’d have a film even scarier than “Cloverfield.” Last year’s poignant “In the Valley of Elah” demonstrates this convincingly.

Directed by Matt Reeves
Michael Stahl-David / T.J. Miller / Jessica Lucas
Thriller 90 min.
MPAA: PG-13 (for violence, terror and disturbing images)

U.S. Release Date: January 18, 2008
Copyright 2008: 220