Even the billboards are startled by the creature terrorizing Manhatten in Matt Reeves’s giant monster flick, Cloverfield
Anyone with a television or computer has been exposed to Cloverfield’s ad campaign — Handycam footage opens on a party, the power goes out, those inside go to investigate and are nearly killed by the head of the Statue of Liberty, which has become a projectile. Chaos ensues, and mega writer-director-producer J.J Abrams's name flashes on the screen (though he only fulfills a production role in Cloverfield). In the original cut of the trailer, not even a title for the film was revealed, shovelling fuel into the hype machine.
The twist of Cloverfield isn't actually much of a twist at all, but giving it away still wouldn't be very fair to those interested in seeing the film. Know that there are terrible things happening to New York City, and that six people happen to have a hand-held camcorder switched on for the proceedings. The story follows Rob (Micheal Stahl-David), Hud (T.J. Miller), Marlena (Lizzy Caplan), Lily (Jessica Lucas) and Jason (Mike Vogel) as they try to rescue their friend Beth (Odette Yustman) from her apartment in the middle of Manhattan —where most of the terrible things are occurring — and escape the city. The entire film is presented via “found” footage (à la The Blair Witch Project), and the pure verité style does wonders in lending the events a sense of urgency. Sadly, that's where the innovation ends.
Without the shaky-cam gimmick, Cloverfield would be a generic, plodding yet criminally short action, adventure and horror hybrid. Rob is a chiselled everyman who goes on a quest across a perilous land with his overweight-but-amusing best friend Hud to save a beautiful damsel. While there are moments when the humanity of the characters is quietly captured by the intimacy of the Handycam, the film never really gets away from the feeling that you've seen it a hundred times before, albeit through a much steadier lens. So, when terrible things start happening to the principal characters, it never resonates beyond the initial shock of seeing the violence presented so realistically.
With that essential criticism out of the way, Cloverfield's gimmick is also enormously entertaining. The confusion created by the handheld camera is genuinely thrilling, the violence incredibly visceral. Though the action sequences lack the choreography and technicality of non-verité films, the palpable sense of desperation created by the camerawork makes them more compelling.
Cloverfield attempts to show audiences how normal people would behave at the end of the world. In terms of tone, pacing, set design and visual effects — all qualities either borrowed from or augmented by the handicam framing — it's very successful. The problem with the film is that it isn't about normal people at all. Rob is fearlessness personified with a granite jaw and rippling abs, Hud is his wisecracking sidekick and Lily is a woman, and therefore capable of screaming very shrilly. For all the realism implicit in the esthetic, Cloverfield's characters are still little more than two-dimensional action-adventure archetypes.
Still, Cloverfield's trailers are undeniably eye-grabbing, and those of you who are total suckers for that sort of manipulative campaigning (like me) won’t regret spending $13 or so to sate your thirst for knowledge of the twist. If you find yourself impervious to the trickery of advertising, however, then you're probably better off doing whatever it is people like you do.
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