Bloginomicon

« Twitter Updates for 2008-01-20

The King of Oblivion »

---

Print This Post Cloverfield: A Brief Review Posted 7 months, 9 days ago., on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008, at 12:27 pm

Be warned.  Minor (very, VERY minor) spoilers beneath the fold.

Yesterday, my wife and best buddy and I went and saw Cloverfield.  Since the only films that the three of us have seen together in the past were Tim Burton’s "Planet of the Apes" and "Dungeons and Dragons", we all had very low expectations; we figured the three of us together laid a curse on whatever film we saw to make it suck so hard that it would collapse in on itself and form a singularity of suck that would make even movies in adjoining theaters suck harder.  Fortunately, "Cloverfield" surprised us all by being a good film, and we think the curse is broken.

Granted, it was, at heart, just a movie about a giant monster stomping on New York.  I’ve been so over-exposed to the genre of giant monsters stomping big cities that it’s hard for me to take them seriously at all (and films like 1998’s Godzilla didn’t help).  The original Gojira is scary in its own way, but films like Godzilla Vs. My Little Pony are not.  The Host, a 2005 monster movie from Korea about a critter that rises up from the sewers and brings people down to its nest, was a good monster movie, but it didn’t scare me; it delighted and intrigued me, but there wasn’t really anything scary about it.  But Cloverfield gave me some genuine chills, and not just the "BOOGA BOOGA! HA HA GOT YOU!" type sudden scares that most horror films don’t aspire beyond these days (though there are a few of those).  There’s an atmosphere about the film, probably a combination of the lighting and the camera work, that are very effective in combination.

I had problems with some parts of the script.  It’s true that if you’re watching a movie about a giant monster stomping New York, your disbelief is already suspended pretty high, but there were still some parts that I thought were not quite believable. Could Elizabeth, for example, really run so fast and so far with a lung that had been pierced by an iron bar?  But these are minor quibbles.

One thing that I enjoyed about Cloverfield was its avoidance of conspiracy theories or explanations like ‘The government did it!" or "The giant corporations did it!"  In our post-X-Files world, such notions are cliched, and there’s not much original that can be done with them.  There’s some brief discussion of such theories in the film, but they’re passing commentary by people terrified out of their minds, the sort of conversation anyone would be expected to have under such circumstances.

Cloverfield also avoids the temptation to be any sort of message movie.  Gojira had words to say about America’s use of atomic weapons against Japan, and The Host had plenty to say about American military presence in Korea.  Cloverfield doesn’t go that route.  There’s no commentary in this film; at least, if there is, it’s a very subtle message about our modern post-9/11 culture of fear.

So, while Cloverfield is not the best horror flick ever made, in the giant monster subgenre it definitely ranks up there with the original Gojira and The Host.  I highly recommend it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008 at 12:27 pm and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

RSS feed | Trackback URI

Comments»

Subscribe without commenting
E-Mail:

January 2008

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Dec				Feb »
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Select Month August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 June 2005 March 2005 February 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 July 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 October 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 May 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 January 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000

Full Archives

RSS