A least the girls were all gorgeous

Rating: 1/10 (18 January 2008)

SPOILERS AHEAD.
OK, so I knew things before watching Cloverfield. It was going to be handy cam style, the ending was going to be abrupt and scenes of the monster was going to be brief with no explanations to its origins. That said, none of that bothered me. A lot of other stuff screwed things up instead.
It starts with preparations for Rob's going away party to Japan. His brother Jason hands the camera to Hud to document farewells from his friends. During the party, Beth arrives with her date which clearly upsets Rob. Beth leaves the party early. While Hud (cameraman) and his brother Jason are trying to convince Rob to go after her, an explosion jolts the building. Everyone rushes to the rooftop to see what's going on and more explosions sends everyone into a panic out into the streets. A building comes down and our gang hides in a shop. Dust clears and one of the girls from the party has seen something (right, this is where it starts NOT to make sense...). She says "It's eating people" and when asked what she saw, she clams up. Not because she's in shock, but she just chooses not to say anymore.
This is the typical kind of one line statement that peppers Lost and Heroes that's supposed to leave us hanging and make us think. It may work on a television show with a forgiving fan base, but not on the big screen. Why nobody presses her for more info is anyone's guess.
Jason dies when the Manhattan bridge is attacked. Concrete crashes, no monster. Rob gets a call on his cell from Beth saying she's trapped. Rod breaks away from his friends running back wanting to rescue Beth. His friend, cameraman Hud, his bro's girlfriend Lily and her friend Marlena try to stop him then follow along. The whole thing is so silly because rather than exercise common grown-up sense and head for safety, they go back into the into a battle zone to save someone who could well be dead.
Our heroes head into the subways where they meet offsprings/parasites of the monster. Dog sized spider-like things. Marlena is bitten. They run into the army makeshift hospital that is about to evacuate. Rob goes on and on about saving his friend and one army guy decides its OK for them to go off into the darkness. He tells them there's a helicopter pickup at 6.00 am.
It turns out Beth's high tower apartment block is leaning dangerously against another tower. They make it to the 39th floor, on foot. And would you believe it, Beths's alive. No other other bodies, just Beth amidst the debris of her apartment. At the chopper site, Lily takes off in the first helicopter. The second with Rob, Beth and Hud is taken down by the monster. This is is our first real look at the thing. Interesting to say the least.
Our three survive, and we hear the radio say the assault on the monster has failed. We see Hud run back to pick up the camera. The monster looms above and this is where we get the best look of it yet. It kills Hud. In the end Rob in hiding with Beth, and his face bloodied battered, speaks into the camera he's holding. Beth cries. Crashing sounds all goes black. The End.
Simple. What didn't work.
1. Rob's ridiculous decision to run back into the mayhem in the thick of night based on a call before his cell battery dies. He's either brave or an imbecile with a one-track mind. Unfortunately, if you're grownup he gets the imbecile vote. We don't empathize with Rob's decision because we don't feel anything for him and Beth. Nothing was ever developed there for us to feel a thing.
2. Actually finding Beth. It's unbelievable that they can make it to the 39th floor without any other dead bodies or wounded in sight and they find Beth.
3. Marlena dies, and it bugs you that no one blames Rob. Because you will. All my friends did. Even my girlfriend said Beth wasn't worth saving.
4. The lack of talk of the monster itself. Every time Hud says something, everyone wants him to stop because they don't feel like talking. If this really happened, I don't think you could talk of anything else!
5. The monster itself. Origins unknown. Ugly, but it doesn't look big enough to cause such a vast area of destruction. This is the kind of mayhem you'd get if it was Godzilla large.
6. The portable spider things. Really underused. We see them on the telly falling on soldiers and when they attack our heroes in the subway, its just all too quick. After that, they're not scary in the least.
7. The ending. Boy, that didn't sit well with the audience. Lot of shouts like they'd been cheated. Everyone walked out complaining. It was the first day, so I guess when word of mouth spreads there'll be less grumbling later on.
I walked out trying to think of all the redeeming qualities and all I think of was how pretty the women were in the movie. If that's the only last impression I have, a lot didn't work.
Sort of like giving a kid the mind-blowing budget, the actors the sets and asking him to come up with a story reality-TV style. So he comes up with a save my favorite pet story better suited for Nicklelodeon.