Review: Cloverfield

If The Blair Witch Project had sex with War of the Worlds (2005), the product of that unholy alliance might just be named Cloverfield.

When I first caught "Cloverfield fever" back in July of last year, I had it pretty bad. That initial trailer, with the "We'll Miss You, Rob" partygoers segueing into increasingly disturbing scenes of hysteria, and punctuated by the sequence where the head from the Statue of Liberty bounces off a building and then comes bounding toward the viewer... yeah, OK, it really grabbed me! I loved the intimacy of the scenes that were shown, mainly because they seemed to draw you right into the action with every bit of the disorientation that you feel while in the midst of an actual crisis. That seemed like a pretty powerful device to use in providing a thrill ride of the type that I usually like in the big disaster flicks.

Well, tonight I got to sit in that ride for almost ninety minutes, and I've decided that a little of that goes a long way! I'm not sure just what more the entirety of the movie added to my experience from the trailer six months ago. Sure, I got to see more scenes of people running around, a few reasonably clear views of the monster(s) and enough herky-jerky camera work to last me - and I'm not kidding here! - for the rest of my life! But it didn't really add up to all that much more than the trailer itself, in terms of explaining what's going on, why it happened now, whether it's an isolated event or part of something bigger, or even what form the resolution to the story takes!

That last point is really the crux of Cloverfield, and as such, you'll either love it or hate it. As with Blair Witch, the storytelling device is a handheld video camera that provides the movie viewer's only access to what's happening throughout. At times, that's effective (as the trailer conveyed) but for much of the film it was more frustrating than entertaining. Whether it was the crappy perspectives on the scenes that you really wanted to see, or the tendency to throw you out of the moment every time that a character-in-danger nevertheless had the presence of mind to point the handheld in the right direction, I found the central conceit of the "camera POV" increasingly in the way of my ability to enjoy the experience. Twice in the movie, characters are killed who we're supposed to care about, and yet the only way that I knew they were dead was through subsequent lines of dialogue... which kind of weakens the dramatic impact, if you know what I mean!

Having gotten that off my chest, though, there are definitely some exciting moments in Cloverfield. The first appearance of the... smaller threats... is done very well, although the punch that it might've delivered is watered down just a bit by some news footage shown on a TV screen shortly before that. There's a perilous journey from one high-rise to another - made possible by the fact that one of the buildings has tipped over onto its neighbour! - and it's reasonably effective, but once again I couldn't help but think of how much better it would've been if we hadn't been tied to that one stupid camcorder! I had to laugh out loud when two of the main characters survived a helicopter crash with nothing more than cuts and bruises (the chopper itself was a twisted, smoking wreck!) but some of the amazing shots from inside the vehicle just moments before that probably made up for it!

Overall, I'm glad that I saw Cloverfield in the theatre, because you really do get the full impact of the intimate cinematography that way. I think that War of the Worlds (2005) probably did a better job of showcasing the "man on the street" perspective within the framework of an "Oh my God this can't really be happening" set of events, with its iconic images like the sinking of the ferry, the flaming train and the last ditch assault by the military, but on the other hand it's pretty tough to top the Statue of Liberty's head lying amidst a pile of midtown rubble! I think the nausea-inducing camera work will turn many off, but if you can handle that without losing your dinner, Cloverfield represents a mildly entertaining hour and a half ride.

Rating: ** 1/2