FilmEdge.net reviews CLOVERFIELD

As CLOVERFIELD stomps into theaters this holiday weekend, director Matt Reeves' unleashes a quite old fashioned monster movie upon audiences, dressed up in high-tech special effects but created to offer the typical scares and midtown mayhem the genre has offered for decades. Since I can't and won't give away what "it" is, here's a brief primer on what it isn't: CLOVERFIELD is not Roland Emmerich's GODZILLA (1992), which will be a great relief to producer J.J. Abrams and Paramount Pictures, since word of mouth (if not reviews) on the film are mostly positive and it's scoring well at the box office.  It also is not THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, though it's stark, nondescript teaser trailer and ensuing viral marketing campaign certainly share BLAIR WITCH's guerilla internet presence for building and inciting a monster- and mystery-loving audience.  Clearly Reeves' tale is much more slickly produced than that 1999 phenom, despite borrowing the same home vidcam cinematography style.  You might also find a tad of motion sickness in common between the two run-and-shoot flicks, but sitting farther back in the theater should alleviate that side effect. CLOVERFIELD is, at its adrenaline-pumped heart, a city-squashing symbol for a post-9/11 world delivering a jarring deathblow to normal life of average Americans, owing as much of its creative angst to the original Japanese monster cycle begun a half-century ago as it does the infamous War of the Worlds radio shocker from 1938.  This bellowing titan is the movie-poster child for terror without easy answers, threat without a viable strategy to defeat it and, at least psychologically, may be the timeliest nightmare lurking in the dark shadows of the 21st Century.

The undisrupted slice of New York life is studied in microcosm amid the romantic turmoil Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) and his ex Beth (Odette Yustman), amid Rob's farewell party planned by his brother Jason (Mike Vogel), girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas) and accidental guest Marlena (Lizzy Caplan), all 'documented' by Rob's pal Hud (T.J. Miller) for posterity — or as it turns out, for government evidence in the aftermath of the code-named Cloverfield incident.  Incident being the understatement of the new Millennium, as the group's Lower East Side world is shattered when destruction rains down on Manhattan by a distant attack.  When the head of the Statue of Liberty bounces down the street outside, the party is definitely over and a human refugee race for survival begins over the ensuing seventy minutes.  Director Matt Reeves' gimmick is presenting his film as raw video footage found and catalogued (in lieu of opening credits) by federal authorities amid the destruction of "the area formerly known as Central Park," an ominous prologue which sets up what follows as a disaster-genre guessing game of which in our pod of Manhattans, if any, will survive to the end credits.

Once the party is literally knocked off its feet by the thundering footsteps of the approaching behemoth, the film becomes one lengthy extended race and chase to flee falling skyscraper debris, fires, dust clouds, masses of scared civilians and the deadly crossfire of the military resistance.  Wisely, Reeves and screenwriter Drew Goddard never stop the action to explain away the chaos, mainly because the event is so fresh and stunning that no one, not even the authorities, have any clue what is actually happening.  Those unfortunate souls close enough to witness the creature's destruction likely do not live to report it, and any witnesses at safer distance are unable to comprehend the site of a giant thing laying waste to New York City.  There are no scientific experts spouting exposition on the origins of the whatsit, no cigar-chewing generals with the master plan to defeat it — humanity at large is simply running for cover or dying under the wreckage.

The contextual parallels to the 9/11 attack on New York are never blatantly drawn, but the cultural connection is implicit and unmistakable, especially given the film's handheld vidcam format which so thoroughly recorded the infamous attack.  Opening CLOVERFIELD's action with the decapitation of the Statue of Liberty and watching the characters scurry for shelter as a storm of dusty debris rolls down the street are strong symbols and images which have been burned into American psyches over the past six years.  The immediate shock, fright and disorientation portrayed by the characters rings true, and overall the cast, to their credit, remains believably in this state of bewildered angst throughout the film even at its most fantastic moments.

Dramatically, CLOVERFIELD is as influenced by the Orson Welles radio play adaptation of H.G Wells' War of the Worlds as it is the 'bastardized' 1956 American release of Toho Films' original GOJIRA (GODZILLA) from 1954.  On the historical eve of World War II, Welles dramatized a Martian invasion of our planet using the media cues of his day — radio reportage broadcast live from the scene of breaking news.  By mid-century, American producers recut Toho's Japanese language tale of a radioactive lizard destroying Tokyo and inserted a news reporter to narrate the destruction.  In our video age, the average man on the street is the documentarian of every day life and extraordinary moments of history, as abundantly evidenced after 9/11.  Thus Reeves and cinematographer Michael Bonvillain assemble their monstrous modern day gauntlet in a nearly 80-minute escape through the avenues, subway tunnels and urban battlefields of the East Side.

The cast of largely unknown actors gains audience sympathy and holds attention for the duration of the story without either becoming superheroes saving the day or mindless monster fodder awaiting to get picked off one by one confronting terror around every corner.  Yet given the real-time playing out of this traumatic event also prevents Rob, Beth, Jason, Marlena and Hud from every truly becoming characters audiences can know.  They remain a collection of personalities and attitudes which are revealed as they face this catastrophe, tending to stay figures in our proximity as the monster attacks rather than people we come to bond with emotionally.  Because we the audience are tied to this group via the camera, the resulting tension, anxiety and moments of terror are felt as much for our own voyeuristic participation as they are for the characters.  Since we never fully identify with our fellow refugees, their fates never impact us as richly as filmgoers want — this is particularly unhelpful during one climactic sequence with Rob, Lily and Hud where credibilty is stretched very thin and the action devolves into a weak copy of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE or TOWERING INFERNO.

So we are left with the main draw of this ticket, the creature.  After all, faithful monster movie fans don't line up to form emotional connections to those unlucky victims which fall underfoot, they want a big bellowing destroyer to level the skyline.  A nod to the visual effects team who did a frighteningly good job inserting this digital demon into the quite normal vidcam appearance of the film.  The gigantic nightmare featured in CLOVERFIELD certainly lives up to that expectation, and the filmmakers skillfully hide its bizarre identity with distant, dust-clouded glimpses during the first night attack. 

Even seen in digital projection, it's intentionally impossible to get a good look at the creature as the circumstantial action (and failure to defeat it) builds.  When finally revealed, the gargantuan seen is startling and fairly original in appearance and function, though the mystery surrounding it can't help but deflate its impact up close and personal.   Since we're wisely given no pat answers as to what it is, where it came from or why it's attacking New York, our mutual confusion leaves many blanks which might have been filled with more terrifying details.  Like the characters running from it, we never get to know enough about this monster to love hating it or squirm fearing it — which is the one trait which makes a Godzilla or Kong endure the decades, their larger-than-life personality.  Still, the film is smarter to err on the side of misdirection and implication rather than spoon-feed its audience with trite and ridiculous sci-horror clichés, but occasionally a little more is more, and less is simply less. 

It seems clear, given Paramount's box office estimates for this holiday weekend receipts, that CLOVERFIELD has found its market niche and filled it with a taut-if-limited tale of monstrous terror that is filling theaters.  The production value is remarkable thanks to an abundance of on-location shooting which grounds this lethal nightmare in our living day world.  What results is a well-made upgrade in monster movies, more ambitious in its technical achievements simulating the reality of this horror than it is expanding the frontiers of this venerable genre.  It may well be just the right time for CLOVERFIELD to attack theaters and claim a towering victory in ticket sales, but it's hard to imagine the film standing so tall against the years to become a classic creature feature.

READ THE FILMEDGE.NET REVIEW OF CLOVERFIELD ON DVD, AVAILABLE IN STORES APRIL 22, 2008