Cloverfield

Dir: Matt Reeves
85 Mins
2008












In New York A group of friends gather for a party to give a farewell to one of their number who is relocating to Tokyo. An unexpected blast hits the city and chaos ensues as the group first struggle to leave New York then re enter the war zone to rescue a girl in distress. What has invaded New York is angry and destructive.

Cloverfield is filmed from one camcorder in a similar style utilized by The Blair Witch project and its notorious and effective precursor Cannibal Holocaust. There has been a strong trend in Hollywood recently to relive the trauma of 9/11 through apocalyptic narratives and Cloverfield might be the most explicit yet. At times, during the first explosions filmed shakily on the video camera, it is almost as if the film is recreating the twin towers images as a return of the repressed and the authentic early chaos and panic work very well. Cloverfield is most effective when we do not know what the threat is and what it wants. The film is more problematic when we are given at first glimpses and then, eventually, full view of the menace. The main problem is that the film is so good in the opening half an hour that our imagination paints our own personal horror. Its like being told there is something extremely horrid behind a locked door and hearing screams echo from within. With this in mind it is disappointing that Cloverfield needs to give us some kind of pay off, firstly in terms of seeing the thing itself and secondly by including action sequences that seem out of tone with the intriguing start. CGI may have merits when used in moderation but here it threatens to capsize the whole film towards the end. It has that odd distancing feeling of watching part film and part video game. It seems Cloverfield wants to on one hand construct a verite approach and on the other be a more conventional monster film, A Godzilla remake. The two approaches do not make comfortable bedfellows. When Cloverfield starts throwing us CGI laden set pieces, such as in the subway, there is a feeling that it has sold out its original premise. It is disappointing because the ghost of a far more interesting film exists within the story. In short, less is often more. Having said that Cloverfield does keep attention through its relativly short running time. Some people will no doubt have problems with the fresh faced scrubbed clean American twenty somethings but at least we get to see them suffer pretty unpleasant fates.

Cloverfield was marketed in its teaser trailers as something far more interesting than an effective modern monster film, but thats what we have. In mitigation It is good to see that Cloverfield ends on a nilhistic note instead of opting for a more hopeful denouement although I have a feeling this is more due to a desire to continue this into a franchise and that is perhaps more terrifying than the thing roaming New York City.
3 / 6