...once past the monster's initial attack on the city, Cloverfield isn't very scary or very suspenseful or even very interesting.
One of the problems here is the creature, or rather, the lack of a creature. Don't get me wrong: There is a monster which terrorizes the city. There are even mini-creatures scurrying through subway tunnels and into buildings. But because our field of vision is limited to what a home video camera captures, every glimpse of the attacker is fleeting. A moment here, a flash there. Even at the end when we see it from the air at daybreak, it's never completely clear what we're seeing. Are there multiple legs like a crab or arms or tentacles? Is that a beak, similar to a bird? And what are the small creatures that fall off the main one?
Much has been done in the past utilizing scant views of monsters. The original "Alien" and "Jaws" are masters of this type of filmmaking, whether intentionally or out of necessity. The complete figure of the alien is never seen until the finale in the escape pod, while the shark was created with more music than practical effects. Director Matt Reeves tries to be clever regarding what we see of the monster. A tail sweeping across a bridge, grayish skin through a cloud of smoke in an extreme long shots. But because the camera is constantly shaking, we're never given a good look at what these characters are up against.
Add to that a lack of characters with any depth, thereby negating emotional investment in them on the part of the screenplay or the audience. There is a halfhearted attempt in the first twenty minutes at rounding out each of the party participants into broad stereotypes: the hard-to-get girl, the frat boy, the success story, the female obsessive, and so on. What the script forgets to do is create people we're going to like, people with brains and common sense and savvy about the world.
Each time one of the pawns croaks, we're reminded about how very little we know about them. There is only one moment of pure emotion for the audience in the film: in a subway tunnel, when Rob talks to his mother about a tragedy. It's a brief scene, but it at least draws the viewer into the film in an active (as opposed to passive) way. Nothing else, from the beginning to the very end, gets us involved.
Especially not the Hollywood-generated plundering of New York. Much has been made of the similarities between 9/11 and "Cloverfield." Critics have mentioned how the events we see through the handheld camera borrow on imagery of that fateful day, putting us in the shoes of people trying to evacuate the city. It's rubbish if, for no other reason, than we know planes are not flying into buildings. We know there is something else out there. No monster, imagined or created, can hold a candle to the terror of knowing humans are attacking humans. We expect a monster from a nightmare to terrorize; we don't expect that behavior out of fellow homo sapiens. Besides, we are always cognizant of the fact we're watching actors running from a threat purposely kept off screen. There is no threat level, no sense of dread.
If "Cloverfield" wanted to use our memories of September 11 effectively, the screenplay would have given us a situation grounded in reality. Instead, there is a halfhearted attempt to explain why a video camera is in operation instead of dropping it and saving lives (people are going to want to know how it went down, goes the argument). There's no argument from military officers, nothing from other survivors, and no second thoughts about such mundane things as battery life. (To be fair, though, Rob's cell phone battery dies very early in the film, a nod to reality.)
The most annoying aspect to the film, though, has to be the conscious choice of shooting with a handheld camera. As I alluded to before, it never allows us to focus on any one thing for a prolonged period of time. Moreover, it captures moments it has no reason to capture, such as brief quiet moments in the subway tunnel. If the true reason for keeping the camera running is to show the survivors how New York was destroyed, is anyone going to honestly care about the stories of the "little people," especially when the camera is more nauseatingly self-conscious than the one in "The Blair Witch Project?"
Everything "Cloverfield" tries to do, it fails at. Create tension? Nope. Mimic reality? Sorry. Attention grabbing characters? Not a chance. Which is all a shock, considering the pedigree of the creative personnel. One of the most anticipated films of early 2008 lands with a resounding thud. A charitable 4 out of 10. Once again, marketing sells a movie not worthy of that sale.
Jason's Film Rating: 4/10
Video:
You have to remember that the moviemakers intended their film to represent what a store-bought handicam might produce. Paramount present the picture in a 1.85:1 anamorphic screen ratio, and the filmmakers used several different digital cameras, including a relatively inexpensive commerical-grade product, to shoot the movie. Although the results vary somewhat, the video quality is usually soft, a little fuzzy, and mostly flat looking, no matter where the filmmakers point their camera at any given time, and that could be anywhere, literally. Colors are deliberately flat, too, with large areas of the screen in constant darkness. Don't expect anything here to dazzle the eye; remember, it's supposed to look like a home movie.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio provides a big, booming bass, a wide stereo spread, a strong dynamic impact, and fairly good surround effects, all of which seem at odds with the picture's supposedly having been made from a consumer-grade video camera. Midrange dialogue is also clearly intelligible at all times, which would fly in the face of the circumstances. In other words, the audio quality is too good for what it's alleged to be but at least proves more satisfying than the video experience.
Extras:
The first of the extras is the now-mandatory audio commentary, this one by director Matt Reeves. Since watching this film with its regular soundtrack or with the director's commentary makes little difference, you might as well try the commentary the second time you watch it. After that is a series of documentaries and featurettes. The first is "The Making of Cloverfield," twenty-eight minutes and self-explanatory. The next is "Cloverfield Visual Effects," twenty-two minutes and also self-explanatory. The third is "I Saw It! It's Alive! It's Huge," six minutes on the creature design. And the final featurette is "Clover Fun," about four minutes of bloopers, although it's hard to tell since much of the film appears to have been improvised.
In addition, there are four deleted scenes titled "Congrats Rob," "When You're in Japan," "I Call That a Date," and "It's Going to Hurt," with optional director commentary and totalling about three minutes. What's more, there are two alternate endings, totalling about four minutes, also with optional commentary. Finally, Paramount's press site says they have included a number of Easter eggs hidden away on the disc, for which I cannot vouch.
Things wind down with sixteen scene selections but no chapter insert; previews of several other Paramount releases, including the latest Indiana Jones epic; and English, French, and Spanish spoken languages and subtitles.
Parting Shots:
I'd give "Cloverfield" an A for effort, a B for visuals, a C for content, and a D for photography, the latter, of course, being intentional on the filmmakers' part. Still, the movie doesn't add up to much, and I don't know how it would fare in repeat viewings. It was a little too herky-jerky for me.
Much has been done in the past utilizing scant views of monsters. The original "Alien" and "Jaws" are masters of this type of filmmaking, whether intentionally or out of necessity. The complete figure of the alien is never seen until the finale in the escape pod, while the shark was created with more music than practical effects. Director Matt Reeves tries to be clever regarding what we see of the monster. A tail sweeping across a bridge, grayish skin through a cloud of smoke in an extreme long shots. But because the camera is constantly shaking, we're never given a good look at what these characters are up against.
Add to that a lack of characters with any depth, thereby negating emotional investment in them on the part of the screenplay or the audience. There is a halfhearted attempt in the first twenty minutes at rounding out each of the party participants into broad stereotypes: the hard-to-get girl, the frat boy, the success story, the female obsessive, and so on. What the script forgets to do is create people we're going to like, people with brains and common sense and savvy about the world.
Each time one of the pawns croaks, we're reminded about how very little we know about them. There is only one moment of pure emotion for the audience in the film: in a subway tunnel, when Rob talks to his mother about a tragedy. It's a brief scene, but it at least draws the viewer into the film in an active (as opposed to passive) way. Nothing else, from the beginning to the very end, gets us involved.
Especially not the Hollywood-generated plundering of New York. Much has been made of the similarities between 9/11 and "Cloverfield." Critics have mentioned how the events we see through the handheld camera borrow on imagery of that fateful day, putting us in the shoes of people trying to evacuate the city. It's rubbish if, for no other reason, than we know planes are not flying into buildings. We know there is something else out there. No monster, imagined or created, can hold a candle to the terror of knowing humans are attacking humans. We expect a monster from a nightmare to terrorize; we don't expect that behavior out of fellow homo sapiens. Besides, we are always cognizant of the fact we're watching actors running from a threat purposely kept off screen. There is no threat level, no sense of dread.
If "Cloverfield" wanted to use our memories of September 11 effectively, the screenplay would have given us a situation grounded in reality. Instead, there is a halfhearted attempt to explain why a video camera is in operation instead of dropping it and saving lives (people are going to want to know how it went down, goes the argument). There's no argument from military officers, nothing from other survivors, and no second thoughts about such mundane things as battery life. (To be fair, though, Rob's cell phone battery dies very early in the film, a nod to reality.)
The most annoying aspect to the film, though, has to be the conscious choice of shooting with a handheld camera. As I alluded to before, it never allows us to focus on any one thing for a prolonged period of time. Moreover, it captures moments it has no reason to capture, such as brief quiet moments in the subway tunnel. If the true reason for keeping the camera running is to show the survivors how New York was destroyed, is anyone going to honestly care about the stories of the "little people," especially when the camera is more nauseatingly self-conscious than the one in "The Blair Witch Project?"
Everything "Cloverfield" tries to do, it fails at. Create tension? Nope. Mimic reality? Sorry. Attention grabbing characters? Not a chance. Which is all a shock, considering the pedigree of the creative personnel. One of the most anticipated films of early 2008 lands with a resounding thud. A charitable 4 out of 10. Once again, marketing sells a movie not worthy of that sale.
Jason's Film Rating: 4/10
Video:
You have to remember that the moviemakers intended their film to represent what a store-bought handicam might produce. Paramount present the picture in a 1.85:1 anamorphic screen ratio, and the filmmakers used several different digital cameras, including a relatively inexpensive commerical-grade product, to shoot the movie. Although the results vary somewhat, the video quality is usually soft, a little fuzzy, and mostly flat looking, no matter where the filmmakers point their camera at any given time, and that could be anywhere, literally. Colors are deliberately flat, too, with large areas of the screen in constant darkness. Don't expect anything here to dazzle the eye; remember, it's supposed to look like a home movie.
Audio:
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio provides a big, booming bass, a wide stereo spread, a strong dynamic impact, and fairly good surround effects, all of which seem at odds with the picture's supposedly having been made from a consumer-grade video camera. Midrange dialogue is also clearly intelligible at all times, which would fly in the face of the circumstances. In other words, the audio quality is too good for what it's alleged to be but at least proves more satisfying than the video experience.
Extras:
The first of the extras is the now-mandatory audio commentary, this one by director Matt Reeves. Since watching this film with its regular soundtrack or with the director's commentary makes little difference, you might as well try the commentary the second time you watch it. After that is a series of documentaries and featurettes. The first is "The Making of Cloverfield," twenty-eight minutes and self-explanatory. The next is "Cloverfield Visual Effects," twenty-two minutes and also self-explanatory. The third is "I Saw It! It's Alive! It's Huge," six minutes on the creature design. And the final featurette is "Clover Fun," about four minutes of bloopers, although it's hard to tell since much of the film appears to have been improvised.
In addition, there are four deleted scenes titled "Congrats Rob," "When You're in Japan," "I Call That a Date," and "It's Going to Hurt," with optional director commentary and totalling about three minutes. What's more, there are two alternate endings, totalling about four minutes, also with optional commentary. Finally, Paramount's press site says they have included a number of Easter eggs hidden away on the disc, for which I cannot vouch.
Things wind down with sixteen scene selections but no chapter insert; previews of several other Paramount releases, including the latest Indiana Jones epic; and English, French, and Spanish spoken languages and subtitles.
Parting Shots:
I'd give "Cloverfield" an A for effort, a B for visuals, a C for content, and a D for photography, the latter, of course, being intentional on the filmmakers' part. Still, the movie doesn't add up to much, and I don't know how it would fare in repeat viewings. It was a little too herky-jerky for me.
Average user rating (1-5):
[release]23337[/release]