Cloverfield

Run like hell! That’s a good place to start…

Rob is going to Japan to accept a Vice President’s position in his company, which never gets named. His brother, Jason, his friend Hud (short for Hudson) are throwing Rob a surprise party with the best of Rob’s friends in attendance. One person in particular is in attendance named Beth, who Rob (nearly a month ago) slept with and has been in love with since they were kids. When Beth shows up with a new guy friend, Rob gets upset, says some things he doesn’t mean and they both part ways. Once gone, soon after the fight, an apparent earthquake occurs, or so they think it is. The party goes up on the rooftop of their apartment and witnesses downtown Manhattan exploding and a few buildings tumbling. Objects fly through the sky, crushing into the buildings around them, the party runs for their lives. As they make it out of the building and out into the street, they soon find themselves amongst chaos, not really knowing what the hell is happening. After seeing a large object hurled towards them, and identifying it as the head for the statue of liberty, they know they’re in for some serious problems.

I saw this with my best friend, Brian Thompson, in Maryland. We both didn’t know what to expect, but we found it to be very intense. When I had the pleasure of viewing the DVD version of the film I certainly found myself sweating through my palms again. This movie is intense! And you know why this movie is intense? That damned handheld camera view! J.J. Abrams was interviewed at some online website and was asked about this point of view and he came up with a simple answer: It’s the view you get from the people running away from Godzilla. And he’s right, that is the view you get and it couldn’t be more intense and dreadful than it was made out to be. When I say dreadful, what I mean is that you’re actually sharing the vantage point of the people who are going through this dreadful process of fleeing for their lives for an unknown reason. That, in itself, is scary. What really ups the level of this effect is that there’s no real storyline given. There’s no definite hero, there’s no definite villian, there’s just complete chaos. This is what the Blair Witch Project needed to be (oye, I can’t believe I actually mentioned that horrible film, many apologies) and what it didn’t accomplish.

Camera views aside, i think the actors helped out tremendously by freaking out just like a normal human being would. Now, there is a point in the movie where i struggled with believing someone would actually decide to do something. The point where Rob decided to go rescue Beth, that had me scratching my head thinking, “Why would you do that? You’ve seen this beast that’s out of control, it’s wrecking a city and you want to go back for this girl who has completely blown you off?” Then I realized that they set up his character to do this. By putting together the love story at the beginning, no matter how brief, they’ve inserted the human love element between the two characters (Beth and Rob), therefore it would logically be justified. Of course, I quickly forgot about this logic when the monster and fighting and running for one’s life inserted itself onto the screen again. That’s how the movie continues through the end, it is a non-stop thrill ride where you’re constantly uncomfortable. That lack of comfort really makes this movie, regardless if it’s in the theater or on the small screen. Kudos to the cast though, Michael Stahl-David played a great Rob. Obsessed with finding Beth (Odette Yustman — who is a bit whiny in the film), regardless of outcome from the effort, made it crazy and good at the same time. Kudos to T.J. Miller who was truly the comedy relief for the film as Hud. Hud created the tension through his camera and eased it through his comedy. It’s a great combo. As for the rest of them, they did well, with especially good kudos to Lizzy Caplan for the way she went. I won’t go into details, but bravo!