Movie review: Cloverfield

"It's heeeere..."

by John P. Meyer

There were more than a few of us Lost-watchers, I'm certain, who were sorely disappointed to finally get a look at the fearsome "creature" who made a habit of stomping through the jungle and menacing the show's attractive leads to discover that it was - damn it! - some kind of invisible force field entity. As opposed to being a fleshed-out T-Rex or some other kind of physical man- (or monster-) ifestation dredged up from the id of John Locke.

As a balm against this indignity, J.J. Abrams - the series producer and creative head man - has bestowed upon us monster-lovers a genuine treat in the form of Cloverfield, which delivers on the much-ballyhooed virally-driven promise of its long-running hype by hearkening back to the glory days of city-stomping monster mayhem - with a twist.

Instead of amping up the special effects budget and presenting yet another remake of the classic Gotham-gets-smashed-by-big-lizard opus, Abrams (through his anointed director Matt Reeves and Lost/Alias scripter Drew Goddard) serves up a dish more closely related to the low-tech POV Blair Witch Project than to CG-heavy Godzilla fare.

At a Dallas preview screening of this highly-anticipated film the distributor's rep read us the usual riot act: turn off the cell phones or risk being summarily ejected. Given the net buzz and mindful, one supposes, of the viral coefficient, we received an additional warning against any attempt to surreptitiously record the movie. Turns out there were five or six "undercover" security operatives hidden amongst the crowd equipped with - so we were told - night vision goggles. These bug-eyed creeps would be periodically scanning the audience for scofflaws. Sheesh.

Speaking of Godzilla, there are two readily-identifiable nods to that ground- (and Tokyo-) breaking big lizard epic, the first of which comes during Cloverfield's opening titles in the form of the booming, sequenced footsteps embedded in the audio track. (I'll leave it to you to discover the second salute, which comes much later in the film.) Hearing those ominous, relentless, ground-shaking thuds was like returning to my monster-movie-watching childhood and boded well for what was to come.

As anyone who has seen the trailer will have gathered, the narrative of the movie is related through an amateur hand-held video of events recovered by someone in the aftermath of the city's stomping. Turns out the person doing the videoing is a young urbanite hipster dude named Hud Platt (T.J. Miller, in his big-screen debut - if you can call it that, considering that most of his "screen-time" is spent behind the camera rather than in front of it).

Hud has been recruited to record a video chronicle during the going-away party for lead character Rob (Michael Stahl-David of TV's The Black Donnellys), who - it turns out - has delayed leaving for his new job (as Vice President of something-or-another in Japan) for just a day too long. The events Hud records are mundane in the extreme, highlighted by a semi-domestic spat that serves to set up the film's sub-plot. When the primary action kicks in and heads start to roll (beginning with that of the Statue of Liberty), the reality-based background has been firmly established, cementing a foundation of believability under the extraordinary events that will be the order of things from this point forward.

In regard to dialog, it must be said that this project could have easily been accomplished without benefit of WGA participation: the number of "Oh my God"s uttered by the principals probably extends into the high double digits. That, and the infamous "I saw it - it's alive, it's HUGE!" Then again, this is supposed to be off-the-cuff, spontaneous and (by definition) unscripted, so one needn't go into the theater expecting Shakespearean linguistic shadings.

What one can expect are high-intensity thrills embedded in a visceral first-person view of a sudden and unanticipated urban apocalypse that initially (and chillingly) hearkens back to the similarly-inconceivable real events of 9/11.

To the filmmakers' credit (and whether or not this was entirely intentional), Cloverfield avoids some of the pitfalls of big monster flicks by using its limited production budget and tight shooting schedule to good advantage. To wit: since the narrative is related via unsteady-cam after-dark video footage, the monster need not be pitch-perfect from an SFX standpoint - our early glimpses of the bad-ass beastie come in choppy unfocused segments, but it's enough to demonstrate that this thing is both (ahem) alive and huge. Additionally, since there will be no alternate pov's stirred into the mix, we don't have to bother with the obligatory military HQ scenes in which scientists and generals discuss what the creature is, where it came from and how long they should wait before nuking it. Instead, we jog along with the steadily-decreasing contingent of friends as they attempt to rescue one of their stranded members amidst the city's crumbling infrastructure while avoiding the ignominy of being stepped on by something so big it probably isn't even aware of them.

In regard to the monster: it is, as J.J. promised, something new and different. I see no point in giving a detailed description of its physiognomy or posting a rough sketch of the thing (because my sketch would come out looking something like this). Suffice it to say that it's big and bad and outré enough that even looters carrying boosted TV sets stand still and take notice when action news live helicopter footage of the terrible creature appears on the screens in front of them.

What's fascinating to discover about Cloverfield in relation to all the rabid fan speculation is how correct some of that blather turns out to have been. And that's all I'm sayin'.

CHECK YOUR WATCH: "It's time to leave the electronics store!" - Hud to Rob

RHETORICAL QUESTION: "One of 'em grabbed me and tried to drag me away - what's up with that?" - Hud to Marlena (Lizzy Caplan)

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