Skillful up-date on weird phenomena disaster-fantasy.

Rating: 8/10 (18 January 2008)

This movie was, I suspect, a labor of love for it's creators. I had the pleasure of seeing it at 12:01 AM this morning with an enthusiastic audience of 20-somethings not unlike the main characters. The UCLA crowd, if I'm not mistaken, in one of the best theaters in LA. I rarely feel so good about giving up 12 bucks, and felt well served by the ads that preceded the opening, as it is fun sometimes to go in knowing little or nothing. In the closing credits there is a credit for stills from other movies: King Kong, Them, and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. This latter picture is the one Cloverfield most reminded me of and of which it could even be considered a re-make. Because of it's style and story it also put me in mind of The Birds, The Blair Witch Project and Night of the Living Dead. It is a good movie for those of us who like this sort of thing. The whole thing is from the point of view of a single hi-def camera in the hands of some guy who is participating in a wedding party in a big building somewhere in southern Manhattan Island. I'm in LA so they all look pretty big to me and I can tell you that one of the first chills for the west coast audience is the suspicion that the weird phenomenon is some freak earthquake. No such luck, though, and the picture is loaded with scary thrills, a real roller-coaster. Once in a while there is a little typical blockbuster silliness, but in general they are going for realism, without trying to present anything but outlandish fantasy. Plenty of badly needed humor throughout, so people can more easily sit through seven hours (dramatically condensed) of really awful devastation. By giving us a little time with the doomed wedding party of newly-minted adults, then following the survivors as they are whittled down by ill luck and loyalty, the human factor that gives this weird phenomenon's visit interest is never lost. As the situation gets rapidly worse we get a bigger picture of events without leaving the intimacy of the camera. Well crafted and technically sophisticated. Good fun, and like it's beloved cousin Godzilla, asks questions of us. How on earth would you handle this dire situation, and is it (at least emotionally) really so unlike your actual situation?