On Friday Beverly and I went to see the premiere of Cloverfield in Westwood with friends George and Sue. We were surprised to find a very mixed reaction with respect to gender. Going in we all knew it was a “monster movie.” It seems the females were particularly turned off by the “home-movie” aspect, where the males thought that it added a new sense of realism to a tired genre. The reactions were so opposite that George and I spent most of the night amazed not by the film but by our girlfriends’ opinions of it. Having seen Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem (which makes you appreciate AVP#1 …how sad is that?) only five days before – I thought the film was great at what it was trying to do.
As a film it wasn’t perfect. There were continuity issues, character flaws, etc. It was something new – but hardly on the groundbreaking level of a sci-fi film like The Matrix. It employed the same marketing techniques by surrounding the content of the film in mystery; we never see the “monster” in the advertising, just as we never saw the “real (future) world” in the ads for The Matrix.
The monster itself was fairly cool looking – although it didn’t seem to have a purpose to it’s ramblings about in Manhattan. It seemed to keep traipsing through the same neighborhoods – but only when our characters happened to be in the vicinity of course. Beverly and Sue were also quick to point out that a woman can’t run from monsters in high heels for very long.
The CG was very good – although not perfect. A dead-pan shot of the monster late in the film looked just a bit too slick. J.J.Abrams needed to borrow a page from WETA workshop and make his monster look damaged after being bombarded – by bombs. Still – the matte paintings of a destroyed city are perfect, and I know how difficult it is to squeeze a moving monster into a “shaky cam” shot and have it appear grounded. Keep in mind the budget for this film was only 30 million dollars. (for a little perspective that is about 100 million less than the Godzilla atrocity starring Matthew Broderick that was unleashed upon the world a few years ago)
The monster is about the size of a modern Godzilla – the traditional monolithic size just large enough to be truly unstoppable – but small enough to still be thought of as an animal and not a force of nature. Up until the release many (including myself) had hoped that the film’s secrecy contained a reincarnation of the Cthulhu. Not so. The monster is a low lumbering quadruped with two eyes and giant teeth – and a long mobile tail. Because the characters are trying to stay away from the monster (although do a terrible job of it) the writers had to introduce a secondary creature – this time in the form of giant lice that fall off of the monster once it has been out of the water for a while.
— by the way — if this monster can swim underwater through the ocean (viral ads showed it destroying an oil rig in Japan before coming to Manhattan) and breathe air – wouldn’t we have seen it surface somewhere by now… or at least detected it’s movement? There are several details like this in the film that force you to suspend your disbelief – but it isn’t hard as the movie moves at such a speedy frenetic pace before finishing up in under 85 minutes.
I would say if you like monster movies (i.e. if you’re a man) this would be a good way to spend that uneasy part of a weekend afternoon too early to eat dinner but too late to get into anything time consuming.
