Cloverfield DVD

From Amazon HERE
So I spent an hour and a half watching Cloverfield. Sigh. What it is: a proof of concept of a good idea. What it's not: A good movie. Well, okay, it is well made, it's an interesting idea, but the final product just really doesn't deliver what you want from such a movie.

CF is a monster movie. We know this by now, so no spoilers there, and it's shot from the first person perspective of a character named HUD (Heads Up Display to you first person shooter fans) who is apparently using a wide screen cinema camera. Which everyone is commonly equipped with, not a regular video, standard perspective, camera. It uses state of the art technology to bring a monster the size of the twin towers to life in the middle of Manhattan. Okay... so far so good, but first we have to get to know the characters and understand their inter relationships... and then we have to have a reason for them to run around downtown while the monster is rampaging. Ok check... we got all that. Should make for a heck of a scare film with popcorn just being gobbled nonstop.

Well, the execution of the idea makes you put your popcorn to the side as the herky jerky camera work ala Blair Witch just makes you want to puke in your shoes. By the end I did have a headache from the nonstop camera bouncing. To make matters worse, instead of it being a chance to really give the viewer a tunnel view into what is going on by picking very specific shots, you get shots of the ground, of the dark, of peoples shoes, people across the way, the sky, etc. What you don't get is shots of the monster or the military fighting the monster even when those elements are within mere feet of the camera man. In a monster movie with state of the art special effects, I want to have the camera whirl up to show me a monster wailing away just above me while I poop my pants from the vertigo of such a huge beast. I also don't want twenty minutes of shots of the hapless victims while they tell us why they have a reason to flee together. I want monsters, I want fleeing, I want cars being thrown and buildings being stepped on when I pay to see a good monster movie.

The other bad thing is many many times the film jumps the shark in the decisions the characters make. When the army is evacuating everyone and all points lead out and you know that loved ones are probably dead, okay... the hero might go on, but most likely everyone is going to get on the first flight out and the army probably wouldn't have it any other way. The characters also like to stand in the middle of the path or road where everyone else going the right way has to smack into them and push them. They also go to a near collapsed building on the vain hope that a friend is alive, climb 52 floors, climb over to that building, find her with a rod through her, pull her off the rod, and she gamely retraces the route and is never plagued by said wound for the rest of the film. This among many ridiculous plot turns makes you just want to turn the film off, and there were many times when they were shooting endless shots of dark that I almost did.

The monster is also lame. It's built anatomically strange, it's a sea creature, but instead of staying in the water, it went up on the land and started wailing away, which I don't blame it, especially after the army started shooting rockets into it.

On the geek side, there are some interesting things to see as a proof of concept, but you know what? I'm frickin' sick and tired of all the sci fi and horror films being released currently being good ideas expanded into a feature film. Could you just think it through one time?

I rate 2 out of 5. For DIE HARD monster film fans only.