A clever trick but nothing more

Rating: 6/10 (29 January 2008)

And the monster is out of the bag.
Thickly veiled in secrecy and fueled by the hype surrounding it, "Cloverfield" is the result of "Godzilla" and "The Blair Witch Project" after having a one-night stand. Without saying much, the film revolves around a group of twenty-somethings who hold a farewell party for Japan-bound Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) when a monster attacks New York City.
It's a great marketing ploy, actually, and the J.J. Abrams-produced film, directed by Matt Reeves, certainly looks interesting on paper. Written by Drew Goddard, a frequent collaborator with Abrams, the film unfolds through the perspective of a hand-held camcorder as recorded by someone, mostly by Hud Platt (T.J. Miller). The first few minutes is spent introducing us to Rob and his girlfriend Beth McIntyre (Odette Yustman) waking up one morning, accidentally recorded over with interviews of a bunch of other people we're going to hang out with as mayhem starts.
I have no problems with the shaky camera nor the awkward camera angles. In fact, it helps with the realism and if only for those factors, plus the clever editing, the movie works. Still, the film doesn't present itself as anything more than a cheap catharsis for a post-9/11 New York. One is smacked in the middle of the events yet it doesn't generate the requisite urgency. There are few moments of genuine tension but those fragments never form into a consistently gripping product. You hang out with these people, but you never find the sympathy to care for them, when their motivation is anchored on manipulative gimmickry and their interaction fueled by amateur acting and a hackneyed script best suited for the emo populace.
"Cloverfield" is a clever trick but nothing more. It's the big-screen treatment of a YouTube video, only here the gimmick is more conspicuous, and what usually lasts for about 10 to 15 minutes is stretched to 80 minutes or so.