Cloverfield is the military code-name attached to events that saw New York brought to it’s knees in the wake of a monstrous attack. The footage we see as now belonging to the Department of Defence was recorded on a hand-held camera by civilians.
That footage begins with the documentation of a farewell party for Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) who is soon off to Japan pursuing a career move. The party is thrown by his brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and his girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas).
It is filmed by Jason’s best friend, Hudson Platt (T. J. Miller), who flirts with the uninterested Marlena (Lizzy Caplan). Queue the arrival of Rob’s former love interest Beth (Odette Yustman) with her date. An upset Rob ushers Beth away from the party and is consoled by Jason and Hudson when everything takes a turn for the worse.
Power-cuts and tremors throughout the city herald a spreading panic. Once the party-goers move into the streets, they see the cause when a gigantic creature comes tearing through buildings, routing the population of the city.
We then follow the footage as the group tries to escape to safety, before Rob gets a call from Beth, who has been injured and needs his help. As the military moves in to tackle the monster, Rob is followed back into the thick of the action in an attempt to rescue her.
Monstrous Hype and Overblown Criticism
Cloverfield was developed under a shroud of secrecy that worked equally for and against the film’s theatrical release, proving popular amongst most critics whilst leaving a highly expectant public divided between high praise and curiously livid disappointment.
Most people’s complaints focus on the lack of character, or that there’s no satisfactory explanation as to the origins and nature of the rampaging monster, or that the ending is ambiguous, or that the film is a composite, borrowing from many other films and therefore lacking originality. Others chose to criticize the ‘romantic’ angle of the lead character’s rescue attempt.
It would be interesting to know what these critics thought about Roland Emmerich’s atrocious and half-witted 1998 rendition of Godzilla.
To say there is nothing original here (hand-held borrowed from Blair Witch, idea borrowed from Godzilla, etc), is a groundless argument. Just how many first-person monster-movies have there ever been? Moreover, how many monster movies, of any sort, have been done well?
As for the characters, it would have been ill-conceived to explore them while in the middle of these catastrophic events (and the occasional cut into previous footage on the tape, over which the Cloverfield incident is being recorded, is a neat, if not terribly effective, device to that effect).
In addition, the film’s ambiguity as to the ending and origins of the monster is hardly relevent, as a lengthy, contrived explanation and resolution would only have worked against it.
Carping on the romance angle, in particular, is absurd, as it’s clearly a plot mechanism to keep the characters within city-limits and sight of the creature, as opposed to watching sixty minutes of people running through the streets away from it.
Creature Effects Steal the Show
The Direction by Matt Reeves is geared towards showing as much of the creature as possible without leaving a clear impression of it’s overall physiology (which is in large part due to the confounding and quite brilliant design of the creature by artist Neville Page).
The footage is also well edited, although a brief intermission may at some stage be in order to avoid minor bouts of vertigo, which come with watching from a shaky first-person viewpoint.
The cast, despite the heavy criticism aimed at them by some reviewers, are more than passable, with T.J. Miller delivering the humour and Lizzy Caplan proving that she can bring a great deal of charisma and presence to the big-screen.
The creature itself, of course, is the showpiece and the special effects, for a reported budget of just $25-30 million, are believable and extremely well executed.
Cloverfield is an intense and intelligently structured film. Do not listen to the hype or the criticism.
- Producer: J.J. Abrams
- Director: Matt Reeves
- Screenpaly: Drew Goddard
- Starring: Michael Stahl-David, T. J. Miller, Jessica Lucas, Odette Yustman, Lizzy Caplan, Mike Vogel
- Release Date: January 2008
- Running Time: 84 mins
