Cloverfield(2008) One of the unwritten laws of the universe is that the monster in a monster movie be played by a man in a rubber suit. Should this not be followed, the world would collapse in on itself. The universe end up in chaos that not even Chuck Norris could roundhouse kick his way out of. Anyone who saw the American remake of the Godzilla can attest to that.
Besides classic Universal horror films such as Frankenstein and The Wolfman, the Big G is what people most identify with when you talk about monster movies. Of course, what people forget is that for it’s time, the 1954 Godzilla a fairly serious cautionary tale against nuclear testing. Over time, the character has been most remembered for is wrasslin’ matches with other rubber suited beasties, laying waste to scale models of Tokyo. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
At some point, the focus slowly shifted away from the grim original to kid-friendly smashing stuff. Scale models and toy tanks were shown no mercy. The change wasn't hard to understand, people go to the movies to be entertained, not preached to. And watching a big lizard-suited guy beat the stuffing out of buildings is pretty damn entertaining. The plots and characters became interchangable because, let’s face it, Godzilla and friends are more interesting than us. Which is exactly the problem with a movie like Cloverfield.
Produced by J.J. Abrams, known for his TV shows like Lost, the movie takes place in New York, following a group of disposable 20-somethings as they throw one of their friends a going away party. The entire film unfolds through the point of view of one of the party goers videotaping the events as they occur, bringing to mind The Blair Witch Project from a few years back. Unfortunately for them--and us--a gigantic monster shows up and lays waste to the greater Manhattan area.
Cloverfield is basically an exercise in flipping the bird at the audience. Monster movie audiences and movie goers in general; The film does not discriminate. Imagine a Godzilla movie where you never see Godzilla. What we get instead is a non-existant plot that hinges on rescuing a guy’s girlfriend who may or may not hate his guts(assuming they haven't been stomped out of her).
Explosions happen all around but the camera perspective is to shaky to witness any of it. Entire action scenes are obscured by objects in the foreground and the videotaping character "being too scared" to look at it. The creature is scarcely seen, save for a few panic-stricken passing glances, where it looks more like a giant Kermit the frog than anything else.
It even manages to muck up the "found footage" conceit-originated by Cannibal Holocaust-by splicing in earlier taped "backstory" with the explaination of, oh, well, crappy cameras do that. I have an old camcorder, and never once during playback has it ever jumped back and forth between present day and 2 months ago. Cheap plot device or not, that’s dirty pool the filmmakers are playing at.
The movie is like living in an apartment with bad plumbing where you need check back to see if it has indeed flushed-uncomfortable and insulting. What they should have done was screen The Host instead, an excellent south korean monster movie directed by Bong Joon-ho, instead of bothering with this half-digested effort. Hell, even the worst of the Godzilla movies guest-staring Godzuke would have made a fine substitution. At least that would have been entertaining.