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.
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I've heard "parasites" too... I like symbiont better, considering they appeared not to be harmful of the larger monster. Like a remora.
Another minor annoyance, though rightfully true of Godzilla, et. al, the monster's amazing resistance to high-velocity and/or high-explosive weaponry. Okay, a .223 round from a M16A2, but a 120mm HEAT round? Or a cluster of laser guided 1000# bombs, dropped from 5000 ft?
The creature lacked the hide of Godzilla, the armor of Mechagodzilla, or the bony scales of Megalon... it was a fleshy. Just big. But not so big that a 1000# bomb wouldn't render a hole the size of city block in its gut.
You're right - the movie was good. Only two nitpicks I have are that it was a little hard to believe that Hud picked up the camera again after a few of those scenes, much less actually carried it through one or two, like when he was crawling across the canted roof of the collapsing building.
The other one was that the extent of the bandage they prepared for Marlena after the bite was a paper towel set over top of those gaping wounds. I think most people would have tried to do better.
Otherwise, I found it extremely enjoyable and did end up feeling almost like I was there.
Heard at least one reviewer calling the smaller monsters "parasites". Don't know if that helps at all. Still haven't seen the movie, but I can see why a space-monster might have space-parasites riding it. It's not quite as clear to me why their bite might make someone explode.