Cloverfield

Warning: this blog contains spoilers! If you haven’t seen the movie, you should stop reading now, or be disappointed.

I was lucky enough to see Cloverfield with Steph, Mike, Tom and assorted others on Friday. I have to say that I went in pretty cynical—I wasn’t sure that a movie that could have had the tag-line of “Blair Witch meets Godzilla” could have been good or even worth movie theater ticket prices. However, I am pleased to report that I was wrong. Wrong, I say! I was wrong! I highly recommend this movie.

At the beginning of the movie, we are greeted with a (somewhat cheesy) graphic announcing that what we are about to view is film that was retrieved from the area once known as Central Park after a horrible disaster. The film is now, of course, U.S. Government Property. It sets the basic premise – during a horrible disaster of epic proportions, someone had a movie camera, and filed the horror. Somehow, the tape survived.

The taping is authentically amateurish enough that I was kind of sick in the beginning of the film. It was difficult to capture all of the detail that I wanted to, but that’s also where some of the horror came from. In other horror movies, you’re looking away because you’ve seen too much—but in this one, your gaze is taken away, which has an entirely different effect.

The disaster is actually filmed over another day in the life of the main character. It serves as both counterpoint to the horror and to give you a glimpse of where the horror came from (in the final scenes of the movie, watch closely). The little glimpses into the days before the party also give you an idea why the main character was so invested in returning to Manhattan, even though all signs point towards running, as fast as you fucking can, in the other direction.
So, basically, we’re at a party for the male lead who has gotten a big job in Japan. The party is not without drama—the girl that the lead’s been sleeping with, and falling in love with, comes to the party with another guy. The party is being filmed by the lead’s best friend, and the lead’s brother and the brother’s girlfriend are there as well, along with about a bazillion other people. Goddamn, that was a big apartment.

You’re just getting into the story of the drama when **FUCKING BAM!!** a huge eruption comes from outside. You could see the explosion over the shoulder of one of the people. Everyone rushes inside, where there is news coverage of it on the television. Everyone rushes to the roof to see if they could see the explosion, when another hits. Everyone runs to street level in time to see the Statue of Liberty’s head come bouncing down the street. Of course, it’s only a matter of seconds before people are taking pictures of it with their cell phones.

The crowd is heading out of Manhattan, and our characters are going along with the crowd. Until the guy with the sweet job waiting for him gets a call from the chick who he was sleeping with…and she’s hurt. She can’t get out of her apartment. He, of course, being the manly man that he is, goes back for her. And that’s where the real shit starts.

I’m not really interested in re-telling the whole movie, but you should know that this movie feels authentic, and doesn’t let up. It’s supposed to be an amateur movie shot by a guy running around for his life, and it looks and feels like it. If you’re looking for a good doomsday flick, this is your movie.

And no, there’s not a happy ending.