01.22.08
lee1990 Movie Review - Cloverfield
This movie was a monstrous disappointment and a frenzied journey into motion sickness.
The movie follows a group of New York yuppies who find themselves caught up in the battle between a mysterious oceanic behemoth that attacks New York and the military trying desperately (and futilely) to kill it. After the initial attack, the protagonist receives a call from his girlfriend, who is injured and trapped in her building. The hearty band of yuppies proceeds into the midst of the battle to attempt a rescue before the military is forced to destroy New York in order to kill the creature.
I will give credit where it is due; J J Abrams made a bold move in attempting to make a monster movie from the first person perspective, and it might have actually worked if the movie had been filmed with conventional camera styles instead of the endlessly herky - jerky hand-held camcorder. The intended effect was to place the audience directly with the actors in the midst of the creature’s attack, but all the extra motion makes the movie quite literally difficult to watch.
The 25 million dollar budget was spent largely on the admittedly spectacular visual effects, especially the creature itself. The monster is a immense mixture of primate and aquatic traits so massive that skyscrapers fall before it like plaster statues. Like the Godzilla of old, this monster is also completely impervious to all weapons that are used against it. As if the huge monster is not bad enough, it is accompanied by crablike parasites that fall off of it as it moves through the city and begin to attack everything in sight. However, the effect of the parasites’ venom is so over the top that it seems silly once you get over the shock of it.
An effective job of changing New York into a devastated heap of ruins was done via CGI.
Unfortunately however, the massive effects budget left nothing for actors. J J Abrams did not have the same luck finding believable and compelling low-rank actors that the makers of Blair Witch project (a far superior first-person perspective, shaky camera movie) had, and the performance is more annoying than compelling. Adding to the lack of believability is the lack of profanity. While this is meant to keep the movie rating at PG-13, under those circumstances the occasional naughty word would be understandable.
This one is a renter. 5 out of 10.
