CLOVERFIELD
(Review)
When J.J. Abrams,
Lost writer Drew Goddard, and
Felicity co-creator Matt Reeves, get together with the intention of giving America its very own iconic monster ala Japan’s Godzilla, that’s just something you have to pay attention to.
And when the film itself is surrounded by a cloak of secrecy, preceded by a trailer that sparked fanboy insanity and birthed crazy-a$$ rumours that stretched from
Voltron all the way to Cthulhu, and hyped by a viral marketing campaign that supplied a fascinating back story, well,
Cloverfield was simply something that had to be seen.
We open in darkness. Color bars slam onto the screen. Text indicates that what we are watching is a tape recovered from an incident site of something code-named “Cloverfield,” a tape that is now property of the Department of Defense.
When the tape proper begins, it’s a quiet New York morning, following a pivotal night in the lives of Robert Hawkins (
The Black Donnellys‘ Michael Stahl-David) and Elizabeth McIntyre (Odette Yustman, soon to be seen in David S. Goyer’s upcoming
The Unborn), and right off the bat, Abrams and company slam us with two very potent realities.
One, there’s an immediate and overpowering sense of voyeurism, as we are acutely aware that this is a tape that has been seen and analyzed by the U.S. military and government. And two, there’s also the immersive feeling of being part of the action, of looking out through the camera’s viewfinder and being in that room, in the middle of these people’s lives.
All throughout the film’s running time, as we bear witness to a day at Coney Island—used subsequently as a potent emotional counterpoint throughout the film—then Rob’s going away party (he’s off to work for Slusho! in Japan), and the bizarre catastrophe that mars the evening’s proceedings, we never quite escape this double-headed contradiction, and this intriguing mixture of these two opposing feelings is merely one of the many things that makes
Cloverfield work so fiendishly well.
The fact that Goddard’s script and Reeves’ direction exploits the first person handheld shaky cam narrative convention
Cloverfield chooses so effectively, is also another reason why I was so impressed with the film.
To begin with, I wasn’t terribly enamoured of
The Blair Witch Project, which used the same DIY documentary aesthetic and left me with a case of motion sickness and an overall sense of dissatisfaction at having spent so much time with a group of boring and uninteresting ciphers.
Given my less-then-stellar experience with
Blair Witch, I was understandably anxious about this aspect of
Cloverfield, despite my excitement at the film’s creative pedigree. So when the first 18 or so minutes managed to suck me in so completely that there was actually a part of me that got annoyed at the sudden shift in tone when the attack begins (I
really wanted to chill out some more with these people), I knew that Reeves and Goddard had me.
And when the remaining hour or so shapes up to be a tightly wrought, adrenaline-pumping, emotionally-wringing cinematic experience, well, that’s just brilliant, isn’t it?
Naturally, the film’s depiction of an attack on New York, and the resultant fear and panic and shock that accompanies it, evokes the reality of 9/11, and actually shunted me back to the pivotal moment I saw the towers’ collapse on CNN (which I had stumbled upon completely by accident as I was channel-surfing).
It was an unsettling echo of that overwhelming sense of being witness to the real-time unfolding of a catastrophe that you could do nothing to stop, while simultaneously feeling a part of the tragedy by your being its witness.
And while
Cloverfield presents a fictional situation, the first-person POV nonetheless slams you right in the middle of the action, making the resultant experience a very raw and visceral one. And getting us to care for Rob and his friends only manages to raise the stakes higher. (Even during his
Felicity days, Reeves already displayed a sharp eye and ear for characterization.)
At this point, I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the excellent cast here, who all give naturalistic performances that belie the inherent over-the-top craziness of the whole monster movie milieu: these are just people who suddenly find themselves at the heart of a devastating catastrophe.
Yes, it’s being caused by a monster running rough shod over New York, but the damage to both property and people (and the shock and trauma that serve as accompaniment) is still very evident and undeniable.
It helps, of course, that not only are these actors well-cast, they’re also not recognizable marquee faces, thus contributing to the authenticity of the experience. Most are TV faces—Stahl-David;
The Class’ Lizzy Caplan;
Carpoolers’ T.J. Miller; and Jessica Lucas, from
Life As We Know It and
Edgemont—while Mike Vogel, who plays Rob’s brother Jason, starred in
Poseidon and
The Deaths of Ian Stone.
And while they’re all commendable, the stand-out amidst the supporting players has to be Miller, who plays Rob’s goofball best friend Hudson “Hud” Platt. Hud’s a tag-along dopey sidekick who finds his calling as designated documentarian of Rob’s going-away party and takes it to heart, as it’s a very important job, or so Jason tells him, as he fobs off the thankless task to Hud.
It’s a testament to Miller that he performs the majority of his role off-camera—since he’s the one supposedly shooting—and still manages to leave an indelible mark on the film’s proceedings.
It’s also because of Hud’s manner that the idea of him dumping the camera—and thus shirking off his perceived responsibility as the evening’s documentarian—smoothly becomes something inconceivable, even when all the mayhem breaks out. Hud is someone who needs to have something to talk about, something
to do, and the camera is quite possibly the one thing that keeps him focused and sane as the city around him ignites in creature feature insanity.
Which is a particularly good thing, as one of the other things that bugs me about this approach is why in the hell the camera guy never seems to just hurl the damned camera at whatever’s chasing him (thus effectively lightening his load and truncating the film’s running time).
Miller and Goddard’s script admirably address this concern, and
Cloverfield is all the stronger for it. (The going-away testimonials which Hud eagerly records early on also serve as the smart set-up for the
Blair Witch confessional moment you just know is gonna come around sooner or later…)
In fact, the only (admittedly not that major) rupture in my enjoyment of the proceedings is quite possibly when the gang runs into the military, since, a) the grunts are taking orders from a recognizable genre face (
Twin Peaks’ Chris Mulkey); and b) they don’t seem to bother confiscating the camera, which military types are usually prone to do in this sort of situation, right?
Well, I guess they were just too busy mounting the big attack.
And like I said, not that major.
Now, as to whether Abrams and company were ultimately successful in their initial goal, of giving America its iconic movie monster, I’m not entirely sure. The thing is, it’s pretty freaky-a$$ looking.
Let’s face it, some dude in a green rubber reptile suit vomiting radioactivity (or even a giant ape scaling the Empire State Building) is a lot more pop culture-friendly than this bizarre, misshapen (and nameless) monstrosity.
But I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, right?
In the meantime though, following in the wake of Bong Joon-ho’s
Gwoemul and Frank Darabont’s
The Mist,
Cloverfield is clearly another towering entry in the annals of creature features, a pulse-pounding monster movie for our post-9/11, YouTube world of instant documentation, upload, and access, where creatures can exist and wreak havoc on both the silver screen and the World Wide Web.
And with any luck, in the collective pop culture consciousness as well.
Parting shot:
Cloverfield hits DVD on April 22, and you can check out Afterthoughts (62) in the Archive to see your choice of U.S. retail exclusives…
Parting shot 2: Reviews of Bong’s
Gwoemul and Darabont’s
The Mist can be found in the Archive, along with episodic recaps/reactions to
Lost.
(
Cloverfield OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; images courtesy of 1-18-08.com, empireonline.com, filmz.ru, and wired.com.)
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