Cutting Edge Cinema

Rating: 9/10 (17 January 2008)

Cloverfield is a mish mash of several ideas, none completely original but everything seems to gel together nicely giving the viewer what feels like a fresh experience.
What we have here is the good old classic monster movie of old, you know, big man in monster suit (though the monster FX are awesome)up from the depths (although it could have been outer space, we never do find out for sure) because of some nuclear tests gone west. Monster proceeds to chew it's way through (insert major city here although this time round it happens to be Manhattan, big enough to give the creature ample stomping ground but small enough that if they have to nuke it there's plenty more America left to go around) and laughs off all manner of firepower in the meantime leaving the viewer wondering how the hell humankind's going to get out of this one (in other words which of the standard monster movie/invasion endings are going to save our butts, you know, micro-germs, superior firepower, monster gets bored and goes home etc). We've all seen this movie in one of a thousand iterations before.
What makes Cloverfield unique though is the perspective through which we see the events unfold. The whole thing is presented as thought it were a leaked (although they couldn't really hush up events of this scale)clump of handycam footage taken by a small group of people affected by these happenings. There's no credits till the end, instead at the beginning we get a Department of Defence watermark along with some official blurb stating what this "found" footage is. The movie then is this "raw" footage in it's entirety from the testimonials at a surprise party through the events of the evening to it's conclusion (?!?!) which may or may not be the end of the story. Now because of this, there are bits which feel a bit disjointed. I mean we get everything throughout the evening of the main characters and these things sometimes cross over with the whole monster stomping scenario but there are times you want to see more of what's going on but instead our limited viewpoint denies us these things. This isn't as big a problem as it was with Speilbergs War of the Worlds though. Here you get to see lots of things you wanted to see in that movie but didn't. Massive military might up against this thing, I mean up close and personal (which you did see in WotW but it wasn't as satisfying as it is here)as well lots of convenient and circumstantial encounters with the creature which give you either some "Did I just see that" moments or some real in your face OMG moments.
The parts without the main plot (monster) are still interesting enough though that most of the time you don't mind not seeing what's going on elsewhere though and the film does a good job in the first 10 minutes portraying normal people in a real world situation that when stuff starts going down you think "oh yeah, the monster stuff".
It's also testament that when the main event isn't on screen the story still continues off screen thanks to excellent sound design. One scene where our troupe are down in an underground station talking and stuff, you can still here stuff happening above. Explosions, gunfire, creatures roaring etc. You really feel like you're in the midst of this thing. Some of the jerky handycam footage might make some people a bit sick if you're sitting close to the screen but all up it really helped add to the "in your face and personal" nature of the format.
The look of the creature has been a closely guarded secret which was either because they wanted it be a total surprise or because it looked really pants. Well I'm happy to report that all monsters/creatures and things appearing in this movie looked really cool if a little bit derivative. You rarely see the big picture but you do see up close and detailed bits of the little picture. You're frantically trying to build a picture in your head of what the thing looks like, it's like trying to mentally piece together a jigsaw puzzle.
My only gripe (and it's pretty small) is that due to the way the action is framed around the smaller more personal story of our small group of friends there's little room for exposition and when it does come it's a bit obvious and set up but I really don't know any other way they could have done it. Also there's little real plot or character development but since the movie takes place mostly over the course of one night and again due to the way it's presented I didn't really find it that much of a problem.
J.J.Abrams and team did an admirable job giving the retro Monster Movie a solid reboot here. Some people might find the abrupt ending (which is realistic in light of how it's presented) a turn off but personally I think it's a good opportunity to load up the DVD with extras to fill in some of the blanks (like the Blair Witch Project did)...
There's some real iconic moments in Cloverfield and while this movie is being hyped up to the high heavens so can't possibly live up to all it's expectations, there's definitely a top flight experience offered here that most will surely enjoy.