Rob, Rob, Rob, Rob, Rob, Rob, I swear to the almighty Odin if that dude says Rob one more time I’m going to skip punching him in the junk and punch right through his junk! Here’s the deal, if this scenario happens to me I forgo going after Beth and instead put all my attention into the far better endowed Lily, lot less danger and better to look at! Also, chicks bleeding from their eye and nose and then blowing up, not all that hot, but Hud still would have went for it.

Written By: Drew Goddard
Directed By: Matt Reeves

Bare Essentials:

A Plot – Rob Hawkins is in the middle of receiving a going away party and next thing he knows the parties been broken up by a giant monster attack on New York. After watching his brother die Rob sets out on a mission to find and rescue his long time friend and current jilted lover, Beth. To that end he treks through a war torn New York with a group of friends in search of Beth. Much to his surprise he finds Beth and she’s alive, but all does not go well for his intrepid little group as over time the creature or smaller creatures kill them off (except for Lily who escapes to possible safety in a helicopter) until the only ones left are Rob and Beth. They profess their love for one another as the armed force carpet bomb the city in a last ditch effort to kill the creature and the screen fades to black…

B Plot - 1) A mysterious creature has arrived in New York City and is running roughshod over the city and its inhabitants. The military continues to throw everything they have at the creature, but nothing seems to stop it. As a last ditch attempt to kill it the military enacts the Hammer Down protocol, New York is declared a lost area and it is carpet bombed. But as the last garbled voice on the screen reveals, they failed and the creature is still alive even after the destruction of New York. 2) Parasitic like creatures are falling off of the creature and attacking the citizens of New York. It is unclear whether they intend simply to kill or have other motives. Once they bite their victim he/she becomes infected and after a time they explode internally.

Idiosyncratic Musings:

Being a straight forward journey film there isn’t much depth to Cloverfield in regards to morality plays or philosophical ideas. One could argue that the monster represents our abuse of nature coming back to get us, it is implied that its existence was somehow triggered or that it was brought to the surface by an oil tanker capsizing, but I’m not the one to argue that because I didn’t get that feeling from Cloverfield at all.

The only real message that Cloverfield gets across is an age old one, and that is the ideal that even at the worst of times we are driven by our closest relationships. Human beings are at their best when they are driven to protect, find, or ensure a person they hold as dear to them is not in dire straits. That is a pretty simple ideal, and because of that Cloverfield doesn’t have to go into any depth at all to deliver said message.

I Think This Might be Based on Something:

It’s fairly obvious that Cloverfield owes its existence to the well known Godzilla series of movies. While quite different than the Godzilla franchise, Cloverfield is still the same giant sea monster concept brought to the big screen.

You Look Mighty Familiar:

Chris Mulkey, Lt. Col. Graff (the man in charge of the military forces the group meets when they come out of the subway) played Hank Jennings for a series of episodes of Twin Peaks. He also voiced the villain of sound, Shriek, for a bunch of Batman Beyond episodes.

Pavel Lychnikoff, Russian Man on Street, was the dude talking to Hud whom Hud couldn’t understand. But, he played the telegraph operator, Blazanov, for the entire run of the awesome Deadwood.

Jason Cebrone, Police Officer, was the cop telling the group to keep it moving once the chaos first started. He played Jackie Aprile Jr. for a bunch of episodes of The Sopranos.

Mike Vogel, Jason Hawkins, was Andy in the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, he was the one held up by a meat hook.

Lizzy Caplan, Marlena, played Avery Bishop for a number of Tru Calling episodes. She also was Tina Greer for Fra few Smallville episodes as well as Sara for some episodes of the criminally cut short Freaks And Geeks.

Final Ticket:

If ever there was a movie that suffered from genre confusion, Cloverfield is that movie. Cloverfield knows exactly what type of movie it is, but for some reason most people that saw Cloverfield couldn’t figure out what type of movie they were watching. People wanted a creature feature and when they received something completely different they reacted badly. But, truth be told Cloverfield is a well crafted journey movie. The creature isn’t the focus, but rather the focus falls on a group of young New Yorkers and their quest to get to their friend. Cloverfield delivers a very good journey movie with outstanding visuals of a deserted and damaged city and most importantly brief glimpses of  the creature & encounters with its bug like parasites that create plenty of action filled suspense. If you are looking for a creature feature then Cloverfield is not for you, but if you want to check out a suspenseful ruined cityscape story that is well done then I would definitely recommend Cloverfield.

For as enjoyable and good as I found Cloverfield to be it isn’t a movie without faults. Firstly, and most prevalent, is the moving shaky camera style. It worked for me and I thought it really helped with the atmosphere, tone and realism of the movie. But, I can understand why it would bother some people. It can be a bit overbearing and take too much precedence over what is happening with the characters. It can also be a bit nauseating if you have trouble with non-stop motion and shaky movements. Finally, it does require a bit of disbelief in regards to someone continuing to film all the events that take place. I buy it because every day on YouTube I see videos where people should not have kept filming in any way, but they did. As much as I bought it, it is perfectly understandable if other people didn’t buy it and couldn’t get beyond that facet of Cloverfield.

The only real problem I had with Cloverfield were a few of the illogical and over the top sequences that brought the movie down quite a bit in my eyes. I could suspend my disbelief for most of the out of this world moments in Cloverfield, but I have a problem with a group of people surviving some of the scenarios that these people did. First we have Marlena, who after being attacked by the bug creature suffers giant puncture wounds all along her shoulder and back. These puncture wounds were deep and she should have been dead because of the massive blood loss, but she’s still walking along as if she’s fine. That leads to Beth, who has a piece of rebar through her shoulder when the group finds her. The group removes the rebar, and somehow she doesn’t bleed to death. Even after she starts running around and traverses down fifty seven flights of stars and her blood is really pumping with adrenaline she is still alive and hasn’t lost every drop of blood in her body. Lastly there is the helicopter crash. No way would three people survive a crash from that height almost completely unscathed and ready to trudge on in their journey home. There’s also the ridiculousness of a skyscraper sized monster somehow sneaking up behind Hud undetected. But, that didn’t bother me that much since it seemed more like a homage to old creature features than anything else.

What helps Cloverfield the most is the tremendous job it does of creating desolate visuals, desperate human interaction and a palpable sense of fear and suspense in a compact time frame. The visuals are amazing, there is chaos and destruction everywhere and when they go to parts of the city where they are all alone the visuals provide a stark and lonely feel that imbeds the idea in your mind that these people are all alone and in way over their heads. This also plays out in the interactions within the group and with others as their journey progresses. With each passing moment the group has less and less human interaction and when they do it is chaotic and beyond their ability to control. The fact that all the visuals of other people and the various creatures are supplied in quick snapshots adds to the sense of fear and suspense that permeates the picture. You never get a solid idea of what the monster is or what its capable of and that only seems to add to the unknown fear that is throughout the film. The fact that the camera never focuses on one person outside of the group for longer than a few passing seconds keeps them outside of your frame of reference and instills into your mind the fact that the group is all alone and none of the outside people can help. All of these thematic elements combine with a short running time to create a feeling of quickness, you fear what is happening and don’t know what will happen next because the group is all alone and everything appears to be happening so fast when it actually isn’t. Cloverfield excels in a thematic and visual sense and it never lets up.

Rating:

82/100

B

That wraps up our creature feature this time out. When next the twains shall meet ninjas, monsters, demons and hot poisoned chicks will be the course of the day in Jubei Ninpucho.

Cheers,
Bill