Cloverfield

I'll try not to go on as long as I did with I Am Legend, lol.

Saw Cloverfield Friday and enjoyed it greatly. It's a Godzilla-style monster movie blended with the confused home-movie style camera work of The Blair Witch Project. The first 15 minutes are the beginning of a going-away party for one of the characters, then the craziness breaks out. The city is attacked by a large critter and suddenly the whole world seems to be in chaos and terror. The movie is short, less than 90 minutes, and very much to the point. It is much more scary than a normal King Kong or Godzilla movie, and the action is more hard-hitting. It feels like a horror movie at times.

The jerky camera style might put off some people, but it is used stylistically to good effect. When someone is running for their life in terror, you don't always see the monster, you see the ground or the street maybe, as if someone is just carrying the camera while they run, not taking the time to shoot and focus. But at these moments, the sound of what is going on around them tells some of the story, and the effect is absolute terror at times. I was riveted to the screen through the whole thing. Thought the camera-style was home-movie jump-and-jerk around, the special effects were excellent. The quality effects combined with non-traditional camera work seemed to up the realism for me.

There was no nudity that I recall, but part of the plot line is a former one-night relationship two of the characters had in the past. There was some cussing and general bad language, which I don't like as a rule, but I felt it was probably at a realistic level you might expect from a group of young yuppies having a party with alcohol and celebration.

There are few Christian themes beyond what real terror and disaster can do to people. One man, as he's sure he's dying, begins screaming, "Oh Jesus! Jesus! Save me!" as is the near universal cry from people in true terror.

It is one of the better monster movies I've seen in some time, but make sure you like the monster or horror genre, or at least really crazy crash-boom-run-for-your-life thrillers, before considering seeing this one.

 

It does kind of have a horror movie feel to it, but I honestly thought it was a bad movie. As in, really bad.

The monster could not appear soon enough to end the monotonous drivel of the going-away party.

**SPOILER ALERT**SPOILER ALERT**SPOILER ALERT

We all know that movies operate on the "willfull suspension of disbelief", but this movie requires too much and there was more than one "groan" moment.

After running for their lives for hours, some characters then climb 60 stories up a fire escape, jump over to another (wrecked) building, find someone and pull her off of a piece of rebar she's been imapled on and then she runs around with them.

Not long after this the characters survive a helicopter crash that apparently killed everyone else with only some scrapes.

I couldn't imagine how the director thought the audience would believe that the "cameraman" would hold on to the camera through all of that either. And how did the camera survive a USAF bomb run that kills the protagonists?

Godzilla vs. Megalon is better than this thing. I honestly want my money back.

 

I know several people who went to see Cloverfield just to watch the teaser trailer for the new Star Trek movie. They liked the trailer better.

 

YES!!!!

yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes



Yes.

 

The Star Trek trailer was yet another shot of the Enterprise docked (as trailers for every previous movie showed) while workers welded anonymous parts to other anonymous parts while Leonard Nimoy's wavering 77 year old voice warbled through the usual, "Space, the final frontier..."

They still haven't fixed the split infinitive, "To boldly go..."

I liked Star Trek but I sure wish they'd quit going back in time. I want to see the future, not the past of the series. I'm not interested in seeing the meeting of Kirk and Spock, though the crew of the first series had a bond that was never equaled, imo. But I want to see the new ships, new weapons, new bad guys, Borg getting their just rewards, Klingons pretending to be honorable while betraying everyone, etc. I want to see a series set on a Dyson sphere built by the Founders or some other far-advanced civilization, and a big fight to control it.

Yes, you have to suspend a lot of disbelief to enjoy Cloverfield, as with any monster movie. The 200 foot tall beastie was fine with you, but the 57 floor climb up the stairs wasn't believable? lol Well, to each his own. I had to overlook the many direct hits from missiles, etc. that didn't seem to even wound the monster. But I find the suspension of disbelief necessary for all movies, including those in which people stand around and talk about their feelings the whole time, or the always-thrilling clueless male pursing the fashionable and popular female while she tortures him with her emotional confusion and journey of self-discovery until he proves his worth to her by some feet of thoughtful endurance.

Most of what I want from a movie is a sense of wonder and adventure. I got a bit of that from Cloverfield, so I liked it. Like I said, you should probably be a fan of the genre (and willing to overlook its unbelievable moments) before seeing this one.

 

The hand held jerky camera is not attractive to me.

 

Certainly understandable. I've heard this style of camera work makes some people feel queasy. And there are certainly times when you really want to see what is going on and the camera is just all over the place.... lol