A revolution in sci-fi movies

Rating: 8/10 (5 February 2008)

This is a great movie, because it changes completely the perspective of sci-fi. We are used to watch monster movies (Godzilla, for example) from three different points of view: the monster, the army and some great hero who is trying to save the city from destruction. We don't care about the people who are under the main action. In a classical sci-fi movie, if the monster or a missile destroys a building, we never think about hundreds of screaming common individuals who are inside or under that building. If the monster or the artillery devastates cars, destroys houses and properties, we never think about people who lost their home and all their properties, we can't even imagine what can do or think someone who is suddenly surprised under fire and loses friends and relatives. We never think or care about it in a monster movie. But they are humans and not ants. They have their own lives, personal stories, passions, frustrations and courage. I asked it every time I watch a monster/sci-fi/super-hero movie. This is the first time I have had an answer: this movie shows us what could be reaction of common people (not heroes, not army commanders, not monsters) facing a sudden and unknown menace. It's a real revolution in sci-fi. And it's a necessary revolution, because of Youtube and modern digital technology. We are living the information-age and everybody can bring a camera, always and everywhere. Sci-fi has to simulate and re-create reality in surreal circumstances. And this is nowadays reality: everyone could be a journalist or a director with his or her camera. Look at amateur's videotapes of 9/11 or the combat cameras in the Iraq War: these are great events documented by ordinary people or private soldiers. If you imagine a fictional great event and you want to make it real, you can't re-create it with traditional means, as the great hero or army commander's perspective. You have to see it from the common people's perspective: common people armed with hand cameras and smart cells. This perspective doesn't mean that the plot and the screenplay become useless. Matt Reeves, the director, keeps a great role. He built complex and realistic characters and the screenplay is a high-standard horror movie, with some reference to the first Zombie (the scenes in deserted supermarkets and the task for survival in a hostile environment) and Alien (the attack in the Underground). The scenario is simply beautiful: just every particular is built with accuracy: the hall of the upper class building continues to transmit soft music, also during the tragedy, the alarms of cars start every time there were hit or shacked, the lights of the city change, all the security systems react to dangers. Of course, this movie is far from perfection and we can't consider it as a real masterpiece. The introduction, the party before the attack, is very realistic, but quite boring and there is some lack of realism: the cameraman recs too much, also in impossible situations. I can't rec when I risk to lose my life, or rec my friends when they are living a painful or intimate situation. A heavy wounded girl can't run and behave as a healthy person. The point of view is limited: only one camera. And this is very reductive. I wish I would have seen a puzzle made by lot of cameras used by different characters, from different perspectives to have a panoramic view of the event. These are mistakes and flaws and could be perfected. But, above all, this movie is a revolution. The next sci-fi movies can't ignore it.