Review: Cloverfield (spoiler warning)

By CHRIS SCHULZ - Stuff.co.nz | Thursday, 17 January 2008

Don’t believe the hype. Forget about the endless internet campaign, and flag away the confusing puzzles, photographs, videos and bizarre advertising for a milkshake called Slusho.
Blog: Open letter to JJ Abrams

None of it means a thing once you've seen Cloverfield – a classic monster movie that manages to skilfully sidestep the extraordinary amount of hype engineered by producer JJ Abrams and director Matt Reeves.

It does everything a good monster movie should. It’ll thrill, it’ll shock, and it’ll quite likely scare the bejeezus out of you. Depending on your tolerance of handycams, it may very well make you sick.

But it’s the use of a shaky handycam – reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project – that makes Cloverfield work. It unsettles, gets viewers closer to the action, and gives the film a ‘did-you-just-see-that?’ edge lacking from more polished movies.

As the trailer suggests, Cloverfield follows the antics of a group of party-goers bidding farewell to a friend called Rob. A tense love triangle emerges just before all hell breaks loose.

Hell is the only way to describe it. In scenes eerily reminiscent of the 9/11 terror attacks, alarms ring, the ground shakes, buildings tumble, dust clouds form and people abandon their cars and run for their lives.

There’s also the small matter of the Statue of Liberty being beheaded.

Eager fans will be pleased that they actually get to see the monster that’s terrorising New York – although they might have wished otherwise afterwards. It’s an almost indescribable stumpy behemoth, and he’s invited a few smaller friends along for his trail of terror.

But the monster isn’t the only surprise in Cloverfield. A love story, told using flashbacks as the handycam tape skips between a previous recording and current events, proves to be both touching and believable.

There are plenty of classic Abrams trademarks on show: Mostly unknown actors are used; the film is packed full of pop culture nods referencing everything from Alien to Paris Hilton’s sex tape, and key characters are killed on a whim.

Unfortunately, the film ends with plenty of questions left unanswered. As fans of Lost will know, this is another Abrams trademark that gets annoying over the course of three head-scratching seasons.

But when a film is this arm-chair grippingly good, it’s an easily forgiveable blip. Just sit down, buckle up, enjoy the ride – and pray that the monster never visits New Zealand.

Cloverfield
Director: Matt Reeves
Starring: Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Odette Yustman, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas
Rating: M
Time: 84 minutes
Trailer: Flicks.co.nz