Reviews

MONSTER MASH

Rob WalshWed. January 23
 

‘Cloverfield’ more than just ‘The Blair Godzilla Project’

Cloverfield opens with no credits, just a creepy and cryptic military caption on a recorded video—coincidentally, the one we’re about to watch. We meet Rob (Michael Stahl-David), a late twenty-/early thirtysomething Manhattanite gearing up to take a job overseas (in Japan, of all places). Meanwhile, his brother and an assortment of goofy yuppie stereotypes (who wouldn’t look out of place in a Whit Stilman film) are preparing a surprise going away party, with the goofiest of the bunch, Hudson (T.J. Miller) videotaping it.

As the camera rolls, we watch the party suitably crashed by a titanic Lovecraftian beastie who takes a messy and noisy tour of the island, and soon the partygoers find themselves on streets alongside the head of the Lady Liberty herself. While Rob and his friends attempt to survive, Hudson documents the nightmarish spectacle. A mix of subtle black comedy and horrific destruction viewed through a shaky (but not nauseating) lens, Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams’ Cloverfield offers little shortage of memorably gripping scenes—like a daring rescue attempt inside a collapsing building with Das Boot-esque claustrophobic shots of clogged stairwells and hallways. The monster remains appropriately hidden throughout most of the film, until the big reveal towards the climax—he’s very hulky, very toothy.

One of the many criticisms leveled against Cloverfield—a movie, it can be said, with no “higher purpose”—points out the film’s not-so-subtle allusions to 9/11 chaos. This misses the point: Cloverfield employs real life catastrophe in a way that has long been a staple of monster movies, like the original 1954 Godzilla, which was slammed by Japanese film critics for exploiting post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki horrors with allegorical imagery of atomic devastation. Similarly, Abrams’ film is a witty, pulse-pounding American take on the kaiju eiga (giant monster genre)—not meant as a morality tale or socio-political satire, just a tale about a big friggin’ creature with sharp teeth tearing stuff apart.

CLOVERFIELD DIR. J.J. ABRAMS | RATED R | AT THEATERS EVERYWHERE

Tags: , , ,

Viewing 6 Comments

 
close Reblog this comment
Powered by Disqus · Learn more
blog comments powered by Disqus
 

© 2007-2008 Seven Days Publishing LLC.