Movie 67: Cloverfield

Rob is leaving for Japan as he has a new job. His friends are throwing a surprise party for him, and documenting it on video. The a giant monster attacks the city and they have to try and survive

Another in the “found footage shakycam” genre, though this is the only monster movie entry as far as I’m aware, it could quite easily have been called ipecac the movie. Image walking in to the theatre to see the new Godzilla film, then the guy behind you decides to shake your seat constantly for the whole thing. Plus there are periodic earthquakes. THAT is Cloverfield.

It’s a brilliant idea, see what a monster movie is like from a normal persons point of view as if you were there, but it’s so damned shaky. I actually stopped watching about 30-45 minutes in because I felt sick. It could have been that I’m just feeling a bit dodgy today, but I felt okay until then.

I am a bit delicate when it comes to this stuff. I can’t really play FPS games any more after an incident with Half Life. It autosaves, and there’s one bit where I had to drop down a hole and land in a pool of water. If you miss the pool you die. It saved right at the drop point, so over and over again I had to watch a spinning death. I had to step away from the PC for a bit as I was very very dizzy. I did manage to continue, but I couldn’t play for very long after that.

Cloverfield is similar at times.

The acting is fine enough though I didn’t really care about the characters much even though they did make some effort to set it up. The monster looked ridiculous and JJ Abrams should have tried to secure some Godzilla rights. The influence of Godzilla, the originals, is pretty obvious as the monster eats people and the army are more or less powerless to stop it. Plus the music over the end credits has a very Japanese monster movie feel and the only other famous city smashing monster I can think of is Gomorra. That’s probably why what looked like an asian guy babbles incoherently at them at one point too.

If shaky cam is likely to make you puke, don’t bother watching the film. If it isn’t then check it out as it is pretty enjoyable. I would like some kind of sequel to this, maybe one that’s not as mental camera wise, to find out a few unexplained things. Maybe a United 93 style drama that shows how the government is responding and the action could be on TVs only. I’d really like to know why being bitten makes you explode for one thing….

Next up: The Librarian: Return To King Solomon’s Mines