Girls in fort

Cloverfield

WARNING!!

THIS POST IS FULL OF PLOT DISCUSSION AND SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE CLOVERFIELD!

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO RUIN THIS MOVIE BEFORE YOU SEE IT, THEN READ NO FURTHER!

SERIOUSLY

STOP

READING

NOW!

YOU

HAVE

BEEN

WARNED!

First the bad news: Cloverfield is a straight up "monster destroys city" movie.

I had wild, unfounded hopes that Bad Robot--the production company that created Alias and LOST would make some sort of insane tie-in to the upcoming season 4 of LOST, my favorite TV show. (Something like, the Cloverfield monster is really the same monster that wreaks havoc on The Island . . . or something much better than that.)

Sadly, no.

As I said, it was just a monster-destroys-city movie. It was a GOOD one, though. I am not a disciple of the monster movie genre, but I know enough that this one turns one of the monster movie conventions on its head--specifically by taking the traditional omniscient observer point-of-view and placing it in the hands of one of the characters.

What I mean is, imagine if Godzilla was attacking Tokyo and the only evidence you had for this attack was a videotape taken in the midst of the attack. So you can occasionally see the monster behind a distant building, or you are in the midst of a fleeing crowd and you spin to see the explosions behind you, or you have to dive out of the way as the tanks and army dudes go running past you in the opposite direction. You get the idea.

I was worried that this movie would induce fits of nausea in the viewing audience--as The Blair Witch Project did a decade ago--but either I wasn't bothered or I just got used to it. I suppose it helped that our band of friends paused every now and then to catch their breath or to discuss what they should do next. At those points the jerkycam smoothed out.

About the band of friends that we follow around in the story, you don't really need to know that much about them, because the movie is really all about what is happening around them. They are just stand-ins for the viewing audience. You get to see them cower, see them debate what to do next, see them face terrible circumstances and wonder "What would I do?"

The movie is ludicrous, certainly. And, considering that seeing buildings collapse and random people die is not strictly fictional anymore, you might find the movie crass and offensive. But pardon me while I say that I was reminded of The Poseidon Adventure and The Blair Witch Project just as much as I was reminded of September 11th. And I have been surprised by the amount of support this movie was getting critically. Some sites you would expect them to be supportive, but it wasn't just blogs run by ubergeeks. (Watch out for language on this last link!)

I have to say too that I have loved the "Abrams style" of layered levels of meaning within his projects--Alias and LOST. I'm not trying to say that Cloverfield is deep and layer or has some sort of allegorical meaning. I just love how the stuff happening in the background might be just as important as what's happening up in front of you. LOST is like that--especially the web-based stuff in between seasons. His works seems like game sometimes--if you have the time to chase it down the rabbit hole, and if you are willing to accept that it might NOT make sense when you get to the bottom.

There are tons of things to be bothered by in the film, such as 1) the video camera operator's unflinching desire to capture every second of destruction when he should have long ago dropped the stupid camera to run more effectively or maybe help out someone in need or 2) the way the dialogue was just a bit too carefully crafted to give you verbal clues for when the next "thing" was about to happen, of 3) the resilient ability for our "heroes" to survive any number of improbable disastrous moments that should have ended the tape early . . . but if you accept the monumental impossibility of an unknown thing appearing out of nowhere to knock over buildings, then you'll accept all the rest.

I liked it and if it's your sort of thing, I'll bet you'll like it too.

My only major disappointment?

WHERE was the promised Star Trek trailer?!

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