2008-Jan-20 - Cloverfield
Few people weren't intrigued when they saw an untitled teaser shot by a hand held camera about something attacking New York City. Produced by the main man behind TV-epic Lost, people wanted answers (which is ironic, given the whole shtick of Lost). The following months brought story details, a trailer, and even a name! However, it was easy to lose track of the film during the December rush, that is, running around trying to see all the worthwhile Hollywood movies that were saved until this time so they could hopefully get the Oscar 'nom. The film finally showed up in theaters on the promised date of 1/18/08, and the movie itself is a pleasant surprise considering most after-December stinkers.
The film follows around a group of four, trying to escape death from a giant monster attacking the city. The film is shot in hand-held digital, and is meant to be from the perspective of whichever character in the group is holding it. Because of the need for amateur-style camera work, the entire film is very shaky. Normally this would be considered ridiculously fake and annoying, but it works within the context of the film. Although it's obvious, the shaky digital camcorder-esque hand held is very effective. It adds an interesting layer to the film, not only because of it's realism, but also because the camera the characters are using holds a tape with footage already on it. Within the movie, the footage becomes mixed and we see the main character with his love interest visiting coney island and having a splendid, happy time. These scenes are admittedly very cliche and corny, but they don't overstay their welcome and bring a nice contrast to the film, no matter how obvious that contrast is.
The film mainly suffers from it's overall lack of creativity. It's a strange case, though, because the film is smart about many things. It is shot well and is very engaging. However, the dialogue can sometimes be very poor and characters go in and out from being believable human beings in a crisis to monster/horror movie characters.
The intelligent handling in some aspects is a blessing and a curse. The producers breathe new life into a now dead (with the exception of last years overrated The Host), usually silly genre, throwing out a lot of interesting ideas. There are no awful, 'let's feed the audience' back story scenes. The film focuses on the people dealing with the disaster, and doesn't cut to scientists talking about what exactly is going on. Of course, the audience and the characters want to know what's going on, but it's not absolutely necessary. There are hints dropped here and there, but it's all just side stuff. What's important here is how the film-makers steer away from shoving things down the audiences throat and follow a group of people trying to make it out alive. It's engaging.
But for every smart thing the film-makers do, they leave a few stinkers behind. There are some very, very hokey lines coming out of these characters' mouths, mostly for comedic effect but sometimes for dramatic purposes. For every piece of back story the director doesn't feed you, he gives you ample portions of characters saying how scared they are to the camera, characters expressing love before they die, and quirky comedic conversations amidst a crisis situation. Some of these are surprisingly passable given the scene there in; if there's a lot going on and a lot of suspense then it doesn't really matter. Others are more glaring, such as one character stopping a group of people from freaking out by saying that familiar line in all deadly thriller movies, something along the lines of "Look, we don't know what it is but it's coming after us so we all have to get out of here!"
Aside from dialogue problems, there's also a few visual annoyances. The camera man makes use of everything a good digital camera would have, such as the cam-light and the night vision (that's some camera, by the way!). These work in their scenes, but one can't help feel that they were implemented solely to push the fact that these characters were using a dinky old camcorder. Rather than proving to the audience that what they're watching is real, it just comes up as forced. It's forgettable because the scenes are interesting, but it remove the viewer for the moment, and sometimes all it takes is a moment to completely dissatisfied with a film. The film also spends it's time not focusing on the monster visually. We only really see glimpses of it as the characters are running away from it, which adds to the suspense. Nobody's going to stop and stare at a monster if it's annihilating a city. This is one way the camera was used well. Unfortunately, all the time spent on barely showing the monster is wasted as we see one scene in which the monster (who was previously violently destroying a city) stops to stare down at a character before eating him. Here we can fully see the monster in all it's fake CGI glory, and it's really disappointing. Not the design of the thing itself, just the fact that a scene like this was included in the film. The movie tricks you into thinking it's smarter than this convention, this convention of not showing a monster or thing, and then showing it towards the end. What seemed like smart film-making/story telling is nothing but build-up to his close up.
Criticizing the film, though, is a problem in itself. For being a monster movie, the film is very engrossing and entertaining. For all it's "problems", it's still a very, very enjoyable experience. Are it's problems even legit? After all, it is just a monster movie. It's no here to win any awards or be the next Citizen Kane. In fact, one could argue that it's inclusion of monster movie conventions and corniness are nothing but homage to the genre. The film-makers themselves said that America needed it's own monster movie, and that's a huge reason why they were creating this film and setting it in New York City. It's unfortunate that it chose not to completely reinvent the genre and be smart about the entire thing, but it's forgivable. Unfortunately, because of this, many viewers will not overlook it's problems (or homages, depending on how you think) and will easily condescend it. At the end of the day, though, Cloverfield is an absorbing film, monster movie or not. It is completely entertaining, whether you're appreciating the interesting things that it does or you're laughing at the amusing, unrealistic dialogue.
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Includes film essays and reviews written by Chris Bell.
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