Cloverfield

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Summary:
A group of hot 20-somethings are caught in Manhattan during a mysterious Uber-monster invasion. Instead of leaving as soon as possible, Jason decides to risk his life to save the girl that means the most to him (my hero: sigh).
The beginning shows this as "DoD footage" from an SD card of wreckage remains from Central Park. Hm. I wonder why they had to start the movie out like that.
Either way, it's filmed documentary style with the best zoom features and sound recording you could EVER get from a handheld camcorder!
Please monster... eat'em all!

Review:
I didn't buy into the sad promotion of this movie by not showing the "monster". I wasn't going to see it, but if friends want to see something, chances are pretty good that I'll join the bandwagon.
Sorry to say that the monster is just another badly rendered piece of lazy CGI. Perhaps they thought they could get away with cheap special effects work by filming Cloverfield as if it was all taken from a single camera from a guy that's never held a camera before. That way, there can be quick glimpses of the creature every now and again, but almost always in constant blur. The blurry images will help keep you from noticing the corners cut to boost the viewers out of the reality of the moment. This is while also providing motion sickness and a monster (haha!) headache!
Moving more along the lines of the handheld filming scheme, this is something that can work effectively if they actually go all out with it. The image quality is remarkable, but I can believe a camera will film that high quality. On an SD "tape". The characters kept saying it's a tape, but the DoD records opening mentions it's an SD card. Even more awesome would be to have a camera with batteries that last as long as they seemed to. The flashlight gives the most wonderful amount of light of any camcorder in existence. Best of all is the SOUND. Gone is the audio of distance echo and unfulfilled bass. This camera records in full HD surroundsound audio! Everywhere they go, a boom mic is hanging somewhere just out of view, or is merely invisible.
If you're going to make a movie that tries to imitate The Blair Witch Project, then why not just go all the way with it? Make me believe it's really being filmed with a camcorder. That is, film it WITH a camcorder! The endlessly spinning camera allows for a total blurring of images from open to close just like someone who doesn't know how to use a camera, but the professional sound mix kept reminding me how much of a lie this movie was telling.

After watching this is I learned that if I'm filming a monster invasion, I would have to be really hot. The chicks are damn fine, and the dudes are pretty pretty themselves. There is one woman that is introduced from frame one with "VICTIM" written on her forehead in huge impact letters. I have the same amount of scruff as the leads, but I'm nowhere near as pretty as these guys. Damn! And the chicks... holy hell Jessica Lucas is fine! My favorite part of the movie was getting to kind of see her underwear when she's slipping across one building rooftop over to the next. Niice! I figure that I'll be the cameraman, because I'm slightly heavyset like the cameraman in this movie. Therefore, I get the least amount of screen time. I also know that every time an Army dude says something, it will be chock-full of the most heavy military cliches on the planet.
There were plenty of cool concepts put forward in Cloverfield, but horribly executed. Say for example a moment when Jason needs new batteries (so he steals new batteries from a store - without charging it?) for his phone, and a news report is showing the creature, and his little droplets are attacking the soldiers. OK, so that works for some neat monster madness. But then they head down into the subway lines and decide to walk IN THE DARK through the tunnels to their destination. I wonder why they'd think to do that after having FILM FOOTAGE of smaller creatures roaming around as well. Did the camera dude seem to forget this crap? Scary of him, considering it would seem like big news to remember, AND because he paid particular attention to the broadcast. Seems to me like it's just a ploy to get people in the dark so they can get attacked. Night vision would be a staple in these kinds of situations.

There are too many plot holes to know where to start. Just as many bad ideas were made by the writers and the characters themselves. Good writing would not have posted the "DoD salvage footage" to start the movie. It would just be a camera starting up. This movie's opening only ends up telling you where things are going to lead to. It also shows text in the beginning saying "footage of Cloverfield attack" or something like that. Don't know why they'd watch an hour and a half of kids being stupid for only a few seconds' glimpse of the monster every now and again when there was PLENTY of professionally filmed footage on the news. Don't see how anything new would be realized from this camera. And why would they watch the whole damned video? Bah! I must stop thinking!

Overall, Cloverfield is a mess. The idea of filming it like a documentary is interesting, but I think they should have followed through in every way possible. The quick flashbacks employed by the lag between the STOP and RECORD of the invasion was clever, but turned into mass cheese in the end. Also, a bad opening defies logic and spoils the conclusion. When the action starts, it does an OK job entertaining. It's too bad that the creature(s) looks like shit. Give me a dude in a rubber suit over this!
Not a total failure, but far from what it was capable of becoming. I wish I had the chance to look at this screenplay and make improvements to turn this into an R-rated piece of SCARY movie making.

GRADE: C-

Reviewed: 1/23/08