Not A Bad Effort

Rating: 7/10 (8 June 2010)

Frequently compared with 'Blair Witch' as an amateur's movie legacy of terror at ground-zero, 'Cloverfield' comes with a much bigger budget. The scenario spiralling out of control presented from the uninformed 'everyman' perspective rather than that of the more traditional 'expert' was also attempted by Spielberg in his rather hammy, over-the-top borathon remake of 'War Of The Worlds'. Well; Cloverfield is considerably better.
The problem - for me, at least - is the lengthy scene-setting preamble. We are treated to a tiresome, hedonistic party of young people, getting highly sexed and pretty drunk, quibbling about their shallow little lives. On and on it goes, with the wobbly hand-cam making for a dizzying sensation. Can there ever be anything more boring than movies of other peoples' parties? For me, it was almost a turn-off.
However; for those who stay the course, when things liven-up, they are worth your patience. The wobbly-cam comes into its own. There are some truly excellent scenes of disaster, panic and general chaos, that I would have liked to have dwelt on for a little longer; a great deal of imagination and no little money must have gone into their creation. In the dark, the CGI joins are seldom evident. The main monster is enigmatic and imperfectly seen, which really works better than full-frontal. Late in the movie we do briefly come face-to-face with it in the park as it devours our cameraman, and I found the revelation disappointing - a bit of an anti-climax.
As well as the biggie, there's any number of small dog-sized terrors like shrimps or insects that are fast-movie and vicious. So it's not just a case of hiding in a doorway till the 'Godzilla' thing has blundered past.
There are plenty of taut little shocks. The set pieces - what can be seen of them - seem excellent.
But despite all of the positive technical issues, I come back to the old bugaboo: STORY. It's something that happens to people you are induced to care about. And once again; I wasn't persuaded to give a toss about any of the characters. They are the sort of shallow young brats that inhabit every gore-fest. Freddy Kruger's been dispatching them for years. You'll find 'em in 'Saw', 'Hostel', 'Wolf Creek' - where not? In fact I don't believe I saw a single character above the age of thirty-five. A better mix and more interesting relationships as well as more clearly defined and less stereotypic characters would have been a big plus, and this is where 2 of my stars were lost.
As a comparison, I found all of the characters in 'Pitch Black' rather fun, each had something to say, and I was sorry when the got axed.
Still; it's got plenty going for it in the effects, sets, and suspense department that are well worth a watch. There's just this rather unfortunate hole where STORY should have been. Some survived, some died. I think the monsters got killed. That's it.