Monday, 21 January 2008
Cloverfield Review
J.J. Abrams.
Bad Robot Productions
The Abram’s legacy includes hits like Alias,Lost, and soon to be released, Star Trek (which I saw a teaser for).
So Cloverfield…
Good. Very tense and no soundtrack. You get the feeling, just a feeling, that you are watching a lost, then found video—of five friends thrust into an alien godzilla nightmare—being played in a dark and smoke-filled room somewhere deep beneath the Pentagon, or Area 51, or some other skunkwork-esque bunker while shadowy men, maybe women, take notes of the events being shown.
It is a good movie. You are drawn into the mystery, then the revelation, of the monster. The archetypical destruction of cement and steel by a large monster is well done. You believe it. The debris, dust, sparks, fire, water, brown outs put the viewer in the experience.
The movie lost me when the monster spawned smaller monsters. The smaller monsters would fall from the creature when it was hit by a missile or tank round. They bit. The bite had a mysterious side-effect... “We have a bite!” could be heard screamed by an Army medic when one of the heroes, bitten in a subway tunnel, didn't feel well; bleeding from the eyes, she was dragged off by medics and men in blue containment suits to a MASH tent, only to see her chest explode in silhouette.
The heroes now faced the chance that these smaller monsters could be their death.
Aside from this minor annoyance to the story…go see Cloverfield. It is good.
