Cloverfield

Starring: Lizzy Caplan, T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Michael Stahl-David
Directed By: Matt Reeves
Produced By: Sherryl Clark, Guy Riedel, J.J. Abrams
Genre: Action/Adventure, Comedy, Drama and Thriller
Running Time: 1 hr. 24 min.
Release Date: January 18th, 2008 (wide)
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence, terror and disturbing images.
Distributors: Paramount Pictures

Des Moines high school for the arts class of 01

I have had far too good a day. I avoided watching mindless tv, complimented a fellow student on her outfit, and even logged a few hours volunteering at my local animal shelter. It’s evenings like these that I say, “Hey! I’m feeling far too empowered! I’m tired of acting like a responsible human being! I need an injection of tawdry emotional manipulation to round out an otherwise worthwhile twenty-four hours!” In moments of spiritual desperation such as these, I turn to my dear, old friend: Hollywood.

This evening’s crap du jour was Cloverfield, J.J. Abrams’ (Gone Fishin’, Mission Impossible III) new monster/thriller movie. Cloverfield has been declared a venial sin by several American and Canadian archdioceses, not because it’s immoral-- but because it’s just plain stupid. It’s also broken a barrier previously thought unimpeachable: it’s plagiarized two famous movies at once. Cloverfield, as you’ve probably guessed, is a monster movie like Godzilla, but is filmed from a first-person point of view, like the Blair Witch Project. And, oh yeah, it makes about as much sense as Dune.

Speaking of the Spice, Cloverfield is a melange of annoying characters and paranoia-inducing images that gleefully capitalize on America’s fear of both natural disasters and foreign attacks. The film centers around a group of trendy young New York professionals who undergo a night of surrealistic terror as they witness a gargantuan spider-beast from beyond foulest Tartarus throw a tantrum and lay waste to the city. But enough about Rosie O’Donnell’s feud with Donald Trump (ba-ZING! You’ve been a great audience). There’s also a huge peel n’ eat shrimp that’s crawled out of New York Harbor and begun causing more property damage than any Rangers/Islanders riot ever produced. Clovie (as I shall refer to him from here on out) has apparently been sent from the ocean by Charlie the Tuna, who’s incensed about how long it took Starkist to switch to dolphin-safe. In a just world, a giant sea creature would occasion a giant version of Dory from Finding Nemo to “speak whale” and ask Clovie to please leave. But one can’t expect a just world from the man who subjected America to Gone Fishin’.

Anyways, the film opens with a surprise party for protagonist Rob, who’s relocating to Japan for a new job. Rob’s brother Jason, love interest Beth, and friends Hud, Lily, and Marlena round out the…um…well this is troublesome, I can’t think of an adjective to describe the cast. They weren’t really good…or noticeable…or…well…AH! That’s it! They’re “well.” The party’s going great until Rob’s flame Beth (who he recently slept with) shows up with another man, and the audience takes this as a cue they’re supposed to care. Hud, meanwhile, videotapes various friends telling Rob goodbye. The revelers mingle and drink enough alcohol to make themselves the equivalent of human tequila worms for a very hungry Clovie, who arrives as the party’s dying down.

LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE

Clovie stomps by Rob’s apartment, roaring loudly. Meanwhile, the new agers in the building don’t even notice because they’re listening to their “whale sounds” cds, and Clovie does a passable impression of a humpback. Rob and the gang, having witnessed a humongous, terrifying whale-insect pass by their apartment, do what any sensible adults would do: they KEEP THE CAMERA ROLLING AND WALK FURTHER INTO THE MONSTER-INFESTED CITY. (Now you know why Cloverfield is a venial sin) Rob receives a phone call from Beth, who’s by now back and trapped in her apartment, and decides to go back into the city and rescue her. Hud, Lily and Marlena follow suit. Somewhere in Japan, a bunch of experienced Godzilla extras laugh their butts off and go back to walking through the backgrounds of intelligent horror films.

Rob, Hud, Lily and Marlena bump into Clovie again, who’s still mad that Seaquest DMV got canned after a few seasons. They hide in the subways where some of the parasites that dropped off of Clovie attack them and bite Marlena. The gang escapes and stops for an emotional scene and some product placement as they drink bottles of Mountain Dew from a prominently featured soda machine. Our heroes then wander into an abandoned mall and somehow don’t notice the noisy field hospital thirty yards away. Thankfully, a few soldiers find them, just in time for Marlena, suffering from her bite, to explode graphically on screen. I didn’t watch because that kind of crap annoys me, and I read the spoilers on wikipedia anyways (eat me, J.J. Abrams ;) ).

our love means more when videotaped!

Rob, et al, finally make it to Beth’s apartment and rescue her, just in time to get rescued via helicopter. But alas, the movie suffers from the same dollar-store nihilism that plagues bad (read: all) Romero movies and student films. As they’re escaping New York, Clovie swats them out of the sky. Hud is eaten by Clovie, but then spit out, probably because Rob and Beth were eating their juicy starbursts in their wetsuits (OH! I’M ON FIRE TODAY!) Rob and Beth confess their love for each other as the Army bombs New York, mercifully ending the movie. I realize that, drama-wise, what I’ve just seen is worse than middle school improv.

The youtube generation has come of age, and boy is it ugly. What drags Cloverfield beyond stupid and into artistically irresponsible is its parasitic relation to real-life American tragedy. Cloverfield’s thrills are hardly original, and its dependence on references to 9/11 (buildings falling, New Yorkers dying in the streets), the war in Iraq (scenes of soldiers dying in battle), and even Hurricane Katrina (there’s a scene where looters steal from an electronics store) makes tabloids look honest. Worse yet, all of this is married to the voyeuristic self-love youtube has transformed into a national institution. “People need to see this…they’ll want to know how it went down” Hud rationalizes while inexplicably filming the unfolding nightmare. It might as well be J.J. Abrams and crew trying to explain why America, after six-plus years of tragedy, needs to be subjected to this garbage. Too bad for Abrams, he makes about as much sense as Hud.

Worth the money? Why bother spending money? Chances are, Cloverfield will meet an ironic, Dantean fate, videotaped in an empty movie theater, and posted anonymously on youtube. I guess we don’t need a giant Dory. Maybe there is some justice in the world… ;)