Take a good look at that poster, yeah I know everybody’s seen it like a million times sense it was first released but it to me it never gets old, it’s one of the best/most provocative posters of recent years. But enough with the marketing campaign lets move onto the film…

The story begins with a group of twenty-something year olds awaiting the arrival of there friend Robert Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) at his flat. He is about to leave for Japan and the group is having a surprise good bye party for him. The seldom seen Hud Platt (T.J. Miller) is given a camera to document the events of the night and so Rob will have something nice to remember his friends with whilst he is in Japan. Hud goes from person to person capturing there good-bye’s, the entire film is seen through the lens of Hud’s camera as he insists on carrying it everywhere.

The party is disrupted by a temporary power-failure and earthquake like trimmers, the group goes to the roof for a better view. On the horizon we see a building explode, rubble rains down from the sky unto the roof. Hud and the others run down the stairs in a very chaotic and claustrophobic sequence where the camera is bounced all over the place. Emerging on the street the camera pan’s up and we see one of the most accelerating images of the film (I would not want to give it away but it’s in all the trailers); the head of the Statue of Liberty.

The rest of the film chronicles the events of Rob, Hud, Lily Ford (Jessica Lucas) and Marlena Diamond (Lizzy Caplan) Searching for a girl Rob has loved sense collage.

After the first tremor the rest of the film is a hard core thrill ride filled with action and some very well done suspense scenes. Lots of people and critics have been likening the events and images in the film with those of 9/11, sky scrapers leveled to heaps of smoldering ash, people running in a confused state, people screaming it’s powerful stuff. Some have criticized this film for hitting two close to home but I disagree, New York is always a target for monster movies and the images of 9/11 have changed the way those monster and disaster films are made, there’s no doubt about it but I definitely don’t think there’s any exploitation.

Another thing that struck me about the film was how intense and violent it was for a PG-13 movie. There’s plenty of bloody wounds and images of carnage, lots of language also, I think if this had been made in the early 90’s it would have definitely received an R rating. I often compare films like this to The Matrix (the first one)- if that film had been made today I think it could have pulled off a PG-13 rating.

I liked it, a lot. It definitely had it’s flaws, quite a few of them however, it was a very intense and enjoyable film.

On a closing note, I want to briefly talk about the shaky-home video style in which Cloverfield is filmed. I liked it, it worked for the movie, it was an interesting and pretty original (I know, I know Blair Witch did it 10 years ago) way to shoot the film. I just hope this does not become a popular thing to do, in other worlds I hope it’s not a trend setter.

Rating:

written by Travis \\ tags: Cloverfeild, J.J Abrams, Matt Reeves, Mike Vogel, Travis's Review