Last Friday marked the release of producer J.J. Abrams?
(TV?s ?Lost?) latest cinematic project, ?Cloverfield,? a film so shrouded in mystery that even some of the actors didn?t know its premise before production began, and they had not even seen the final product until just two days before its national release.
Despite the unusual amount of hype surrounding the film, the premise for ?Cloverfield? is so unbelievably simple and unoriginal that it?s hard to believe it could be pulled off as skillfully as it was.
A skyscraper-sized monster attacks New York City for no good reason and ? via footage supposedly recovered by the U.S. government from a handheld video camera ? the audience follows a small group of friends as they struggle to survive. It is largely through these characters that the film achieves success. Rather than panning over mobs of panic-ridden victims, director Matt Reeves (known largely for his directorial work on television?s ?Felicity?) gives us faces and personal stories with which to identify, allowing for a very intimate look at a massively devastating event.
Actor Michael Stahl-David said in an interview with The Badger Herald, ?It was hard to find the time for [character development] to happen organically while still being in the situation that we?re in,? referring to the chaotic nature of the attack. However, unlike ?Godzilla? or other films of similar nature, the characters in ?Cloverfield? are surprisingly just as engaging and entertaining to watch as the behemoth that wants to devour them.
The film focuses more on the characters? valiant struggle to make it out alive, rather than the monster, which would usually provide typical eye candy for this genre. ?When something terrible happens, what?s most important to you becomes clear as the rest of the petty stuff drops away,? Stahl-David said in reference to the movie?s theme of survival.
The writers wisely chose to devote a significant portion of the beginning of the film to informing us about the group of friends ?Cloverfield? centers on and developing their important relationships. The characters get together for a going-away party for Rob (Stahl-David), who has accepted employment overseas. During this party, the horrific events begin.
The construction and writing of this film both provide such clear insight into the characters? psyches that we clearly understand why the friends make the choices that they do when everything instantly changes from normal to nightmarish. When they wander down a dark subway tunnel, it actually seems like the best thing to do. In this way, ?Cloverfield? eschews many conventional pitfalls of the common thriller.
Actress Odette Yustman (Beth McIntyre) stated in her interview with The Badger Herald, ?I was so wowed that they never really cheesed out. You don?t see any Hollywood movie moments. You feel like you?re going on a ride with this group of characters, you feel like they?re showing you real emotions, and I was glad that we were able to portray that.?
The flipside to this believability, though, is the obnoxiously realistic feeling of the footage, which is every bit as shaky as you would expect from a cameraman running for his life. Those prone to motion sickness will probably want to avoid this one, as the footage is even more unstable than ?The Blair Witch Project.?
Still, thanks to a successful special effects team, it?s easy to accept the cinematographic faults because most viewers would be pretty unstable themselves if faced with the monster that the digital artists have created. It is true that virtually no level of animation can make such an outlandish attack appear totally plausible, but as everything we see is through the lens of a personal video camera, the creatures involved already seem as surreal as they probably would in reality.
It is even more impressive than the digital effects of the film how such novice actors reacted so naturally to effects that were added after they finished shooting.
?You feel like an idiot,? Stahl-David said about running away from the digitally added creature. ?Then the special effects guys go in and make you look good.?
It is difficult to say whether ?Cloverfield? will stand up to the iconic infamy of the Godzilla or Alien franchises (sources from which producer Abrams drew some of his inspiration). But as far as monster attacks go, this is probably the most realistic cinematic rendition to date. The entire premise remains so frustratingly vague that many fans would welcome a sequel, but with its first-person approach and clever construction, we get the thrill of something that Abrams calls ?larger-than-life and hyper-real? with none of the standard gimmicks.
4 out of 5 stars
