Release Date: 01-18-08 Studio: Paramount Pictures MPAA Rating: PG-13 Genre: Horror •
Action •
Scifi Director: Matt Reeves Writers: Drew Goddard Cast: Jessica Lucas, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Odette Yustman, T.J. Miller, Lizzy Caplan Synopsis: Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people. The Review: So was it A Cloverfield of Dreams? Or Did it rock Mikeys socks off? Get the non-spoiler scoop.
I literally just walked in the door at the House of M after a scary drive home in high force winds...which is fitting since I just had my mind blown by just how well Matt Reeves, Drew Goddard, and J.J. Abrams re-invented the giant monster movie.
Let me side track this for just a moment if I may; I LOVE Godzilla films, I love King Kong, Ultraman, all of IT! Why? Because I'm a man-child who’s "Bucket-List" has on it "Trash Model City while wearing a Monster suit" and I know I'm not alone in that one bit. However one of the most frustrating things about giant monster movies is the lame attempts to "humanize" the story. Nobody takes these things very seriously and you wind up with some cool city smashing action sandwiched in-between what feels like hours of god awful dialog from people you couldn't care about on your most charitable day.
With all that in mind the forces behind Cloverfield took a different approach to telling the story of what happens when a giant monster decides to smash a large city to rumble; the point of view of those poor people on the ground during this nightmare. And by god it works on levels you won't even realize as you are watching it, it will hit you later like a ton of bricks.
The people in this movie don't play this like a scripted drama, so much so I have to wonder how much of it was ever planned out or scripted. Which brings me to my next side tracked moment: Jessica Lucas is STUNNING!! so stunning in fact I'm not only saving her a spot on this years hottie list, but I'm even considering watching The Covenant (on purpose) just to see more of her....if that doesn't qualify as smitten I don't know what does. Ok back to Cloverfield.
While I did promise I wouldn't spoil it for you (and I wont) I will tell you this, I know some people are thinking that you won’t see much of this beast in the movie...NOT true! You see quite a bit of it but they will tease you with it for a good while before giving up the goods. It’s a great build up and the trailers don't show you ANYTHING about what you will see...and hear.
My biggest pet peeve in Hollywood is: Trailers...oh I love trailers can't get enough of them, they are an art form in there own right, but 97% of the the movies coming out show you entirely too much of the film. If you want to look at a good sign for the dumbing down of America look no further than trailers. It’s like they think they have to give you a guide book to talk you into seeing the movie. Which sucks because when you walk out of the theater you realize you'd already seen all the good stuff in the damn trailer. On the other side of that equation is those Cloverfield trailers. They are like a prom date wearing a double padlocked chastity belt with a virgin alarm. A first you couldn't even get its name let alone a game of "Just the tip", they didn't over hype this movie, quite the opposite they let our imaginations hype the movie and all they did was play hard to get. I don't know about you but I fell for it from start to finish. So while they were re-inventing the wheel on monster movies they were also making up a new play book for how to market a movie. Hate to say it but when the guys behind "Lost" are in control we really should expect them to leave us twisting in the wind begging for more.
If I'm geeking out too much I'm sorry, I'm not saying it’s the best movie EVER, its not. But it is a lot of fun and a hell of a ride. The main thing I'm trying to convey is considering the amount of movies I see in a given year that when something new and interesting like this comes around its like falling in love with the process all over again. Its not meant to be a masterpiece, its not meant to sell toys at McDonalds, its simply meant to give us 90 minutes of escapism and capture our imagination.
A good film should be something that makes you think about what you would do under the same circumstances. Most of what you see and hear the characters do in Cloverfield isn't that far of a stretch from what most of us would do stuck in that same position. Hell I've always known I'm the goofy white guy who gets killed in a horror film simply because he had to "Go check out that noise" so I know where I stand in this mix. My only hope is that I got some nice standardized horror film premarital sex before I got the axe.
I cannot wait to see this again on Thursday night at our Film Geekz screening, there was so much going on so fast that I'm looking forward to being able to sit back and relax a bit for my second run through.
I'll be posting a spoiler heavy review as well, but to help people avoid temptation I'm not going to post it until late Thursday night or Friday morning.
Mikey's cheesy movie critic quote: "Intense! There’s never been anything else like this." Rating:
