Cloverfield

After the gimmick, what?

Imagine a party for your best mate before he takes up a new job in Japan. The apartment is swarming with A-list assholes and fashionable babes, already half cut. No one’s making much sense, but that’s not the point. It’s a freebie piss up, with a good chance of getting laid. Same old same old, you think; New York never changes. Except this time there’s an unwelcome guest outside, Godzilla’s alien cousin, laying waste to the city.

“O ma gawd!!!” everyone screams. And runs. And dies. It just can’t be happening. Can it? All that blood. O my God! After 9/11, this? No way! Yes way, bro. Cloverfield is a monster movie, shot on a video camcorder. That’s the gimmick. Clever, or infuriating?

Both.

Hud (T J Miller) is given the vidcam at the party and told to get people to say stuff about Rob (Michael Stahl-David) -“We’ll miss you sooo much, man.” Suddenly WHAM!!, the lights go flickery and a newscaster on the telly is talking about earthquakes. In Manhattan? Hud keeps the camera switched on.

Visually the film is all over the place, which is exactly how it would be, with Hud following the crowds as they rush into the streets and then back into the apartment buildings, being attacked by giant crab-like creatures that have claws like razors, occasionally catching a glimpse of Big Momma Monster in the belly of Central Park, as planes bomb it and soldiers fire rockets and empty their magazines into the air.

Will the city survive? What are these things? Where do they come from? Will Rob’s girlfriend (Odette Yustman) tell him how much she loves him before she is taken? Do you care? Enough? Or has the experience of watching a jiggly, jumpy series of confusing images driven you mad already?

This is a gimmick picture, like The Blair Witch Project, which suffers a similar fate. After admiration for the concept has blown away, with the smoke from collapsed buildings and the marketing hype, you are left with a plotless disaster movie that goes nowhere and is (thankfully) 85 minutes long.

The effects are low budget, which does not mean cheesecake. The acting by unknowns deserves recognition – the girls especially are seen as superior lunchmeat. Credibility is stretched, however, when the army and air force arrive within minutes of the Statue of Liberty’s head rolling down Broadway. Since when have they moved so fast and with such efficiency? It must be post Rummy, post Dubya, post United 93. Is this the next attack that Homeland Security missed? Monsters From Outer Space? It’s a toughie. Shall we nuke ‘em?

That’s the sequel. Let’s wait until the dust has settled before asking, “What was that all about?”

Not a lot.