Cloverfield…

 

 

 

 

 

Director Producer J.J. Abrams wanted to create an iconic monster that would rival the famed Godzilla and be more fierce and intense than the popular King Kong. After watching Cloverfield, I am not so sure that he has succeeded. The movie was solid but not exceptional and though the monster is terrifying I don’t think it’s the kind that will stick with me the way that Godzilla and King Kong have.

Cloverfield is told from the perspective of a small group of friends. While throwing a going away party for one of the group in NYC, there is a small earthquake and the power goes out. After rushing to the roof to see better what had happened, the group realizes that the city is under attack. They then rush out onto the streets to try to escape.

Once on the streets, the movie begins to draw on the tragedy of 9/11 to provoke sympathy from the audience. A building collapses sending a billowing cloud of dust and debris down the street, drowning the scene in darkness. Once the dust clears there are people wandering around covered with dust and some people are sitting on the curbs looking bewildered. While the scene is effective, it seems a bit to opportunistic with the 9/11 imagery.

What follows from here is the small group of friends trying to escape the city and then trying to save a friend who has been trapped. To save from spoiling the movie for those who have not seen it I will not include too many more details. I will say however, that the movie was well done and succeeded in holding my attention quite well in a genre that can become a bit boring to me at times.

The acting was almost unnoticeable, in a good way. The choice to film the movie with hand held cameras was the right one. You didn’t feel like you were watching a movie as much as you were a documentary, and that may be the best part of the movie. It felt like they were real people you were seeing experience the most horrific of tragedies and not actors and actresses following a script. The shaking camera, although at times gave me a headache, added realism to the movie that would otherwise been hard to achieve.

In the end, the monster seemed secondary and unimportant. I found myself only hoping that the friends would be able to escape and live their lives. The movie was intense and full of frightful scenes. It had its funny moments and its terrifying moments. As a movie I think that J.J. Abrams did a phenomenal job. However, at creating an iconic monster that would forever be ingrained in the minds of those who have encountered it, I think he failed.