A truly annoying cinematic experience

Rating: 3/10 (18 January 2008)

Movies are supposed to enlighten, educate, edify and mostly entertain. I do not always look for all of these in combination, and usually, the last item on this list will more than suffice.
Words I do NOT associate with viewing a motion picture include "annoy," "irritate" and "nauseate," among a few others. These words tend to portray the event as not so pleasant.
Well, chalk up "Cloverfield" as a lesson in the that particular category. It's also another in a very, very long series of films in which the director (in this case, Matt Reeves, making his feature debut after helming a series of television dramas) sees fit to show an entity which should have remained HIDDEN, at least until much later in the movie.
Yes, there is a supposed frightening creature here which - if left unseen - is 10,000 times more scary (and interesting) when it is not shown. For some reason, these directors need to keep the monsters hidden as long as possible (see the original "Alien").
Anyway, Reeves directs a bunch of anonymous cast members (the men all look like Jason Lee/Ryan Gosling hybrids, except for the fact they cannot act, and the women are completely non-descript) in a story of another attack upon New York City (you know, between seeing this film and "27 Dresses" - also filmed in the Big Apple, back-to-back, I'm glad I live in Southern California).
The gimmick here is, that everything was filmed on a cell phone, thus the above reference to "nauseate," etc. This is why the movie is so off-putting - well, ONE of the reasons. Filmmakers have used this camera jiggling effect in short-term bursts to mimic hand-held news footage or a personal videography of a certain scene or two, but never to THIS extent.
Yes friends, the entire movie is filmed from this vantage, Confuse-O-Vision, resulting in dozens of jumpy, jiggly, bizarre point-of-view shots, quick cuts and phantom edits that call for a few doses of Dramamine to get through this picture's thankfully-short 84-minute running time.
And speaking of irritating, there's also the plot and the acting (or lack of it) to write about. The story has a group of uninteresting Gen-Xer's, led by Jason (Mike Vogel) and his girlfriend, Lili (Jessica Lucas), throwing a surprise party for Jason's brother, Rob (Michael Stahl-David), upon the latter's promotion and transfer to Japan (a little foreshadowing here).
Rob, meanwhile, has just broken up with Beth (Odette Yustman), who shows up at the party with a Scott Baio lookalike. All of this drama is being duly recorded by Hud (T.J. Miller), easily the most interesting character of the movie, in the sense we do not see him (just a few brief scene appearances), but he comments on nearly every event.
Beth leaves the party and shortly thereafter, a series of earthquakes strike. Not too long after this, massive explosions rip through lower Manhattan, buildings fall, bridges tumble into rivers and the crowned head of the Statue of Liberty is lopped off.
It turns out that a huge, multi-story creature has been allegedly loosed from the bowels of the earth and, like its predecessors, Godzilla, Gamera, Rodan and Mothra, among others, it is hellbent on destroying a major city (why wasn't this filmed in Tokyo?!).
Meanwhile, our little group of Yuppies is trying to get to Beth, who, in a short five-minute span, was not only able to get all the way across town during the carnage, but also thought it would be a good idea to retreat to her 37th-floor apartment. To reach her, the band has to travel through maddened crowds, falling debris, piles of dead, creepy subway tunnels, battles zones and falling bombs.
And as if that isn't enough, the monster exudes spider-like crabs which bite people, infect them and cause them to explode - talk about your bad days. Finally, the group reaches Elizabeth, but you'll have to see for yourself what happens after that, if you really want to shell out a 10 spot to watch this silliness.
Another major problem I had was a scene too close to what happened on 9/11. It's a sequence of a collapsing building that's all too familiar for those who remember those events. I'm not saying Reeves had no right to include it - he did - it just may hit a little too close to home for some people.
Overall, the jerky hand-held camera work, the talentless cast and the revelation of the creature far too early (and the fact it is not frightening) has me advising the paying viewers to skip this nonsense and catch a showing of "Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster."