Cloverfield

Posted by Jessica Rogers (jessica@filmschoolrejects.com) on January 20, 2008

The human mind has the capability of creating terrifying things. It is a well understood fact that imagination is much more powerful than whatever Hollywood’s special effects teams can come up with. When I first found out about Cloverfield, I was truly excited about the prospect of a monster movie in the vein of The Blair Witch Project (overrated yes, but still a good movie). Then I heard about it again…and again…and again. The overblown advertising had me very wary that it would never live up to its hype.

Almost twenty four hours after watching the movie and I am still am not sure.

Cloverfield starts off pretty slow, introducing you to the main characters and all of their CW-esque drama. In a nutshell Rob loves Beth, Rob sleeps with Beth, Rob never calls Beth, and therefore Rob loses Beth. Rob is moving to Japan for a new job, so his brother Jason and girlfriend Lily are throwing him a goodbye party, attended by Rob’s best friend Hud and Marlena, Lily’s good friend whom Hud has developed quite a crush for. Drama begins when Beth shows up with another guy, and she leaves in a huff after an argument with Rob. While dealing in the aftermath of their overdramatic angst, Ben and company are rocked by an explosion taking place nearby which send them scurrying to the streets of Manhattan away from…something.

I don’t know if I am just jaded by today’s technological feats of computer generated villains or what, but I was so looking forward to there not being a monster at all. To me it would have been much more terrifying if no monster had actually been shown at all and everything was left up to the imagination. When we finally see the…thing, I was too confused as to what to classify it as to really have the opportunity to be afraid. Maybe they were trying too hard to live up to the hype they had created but the thing was trying to be too much.

Beyond all that, Cloverfield had is high points. The cinematography and editing achieve something that no other movie like it before has; it maintained its realistic nature (achieved by hand held camera work) without cheating the audience out of any blockbuster movie effects. The editing is brilliant (though I wouldn’t hold your breath for any gold statues, as the powers that be don’t often agree with the general viewing public) and it makes up for the cheesy Rob and Beth storyline that makes even me, a lover of most teen angst driven TV dramas, a little queasy.

The Upside: The head of the Statue of Liberty being tossed into the streets was the highlight for me, as well as the often comical narration of Hud. All in all a successful monster movie for the technologically obsessed age.

The Downside: Rob and Beth are quite annoying and the camera work got a little hard to handle after a while

On The Side: Though the name Cloverfield is odd enough, the movie had several codenames, including Cheese and Slusho.

Read more articles by Jessica Rogers