I ventured to the good old movies solo this Friday night intent on catching a monster flick and, seeing as how no one could convince me that “Water Horse, Tales from the Deep” wasn’t a porno flick gone terribly awry, I settled on Cloverfield.
Cloverfield is a You Tube movie that takes advantage of the “quick hit” video craze. The camera work is undoubtedly inspired by the Blair Witch Project and, because of that, seems slightly less than original. One other reason it may seem less than original is because it is actually the movie Godzilla. I mean shit, they could have called it Godzilla minus the fleeing Japanese.
The plot revolves around a bunch of good looking twenty something kids all fresh out of a J-Crew catalogue enjoying a going away party for someone who is headed off to Japan to become the vice president of a company he probably isn’t old enough to even work for. The names of these actors are unimportant as they are just there to look good and make quips like “did you see the size of that thing?” and “what’s that on my leg!!!” (incidentally two quotes that reminded me of my junior prom date immediately). During the party a dinosaur like monster starts ravaging Manhattan and everybody runs and tries to escape and gets eaten and all that normal monster movie mayhem.
The movie is filmed by a 20-something named Hud who was supposed to be documenting the going away party and ends up documenting the monster attack. That seems plausible, I mean hey, if a monster is devouring the city and I am running for my life what better time to hone my camera skills. There is a love story somewhere in the plot and a lot of good one-liners by Hud as he comments on the carnage as it is unfolding.
Manhattan gets leveled and people are eaten. As the crowd cheered and laughed I felt somewhat uneasy. All I could think of was “don’t these people know that this stuff actually happens in Japan?” The special effects are B material and the filming is choppy to the point where a viewer may get a headache.
All in all it was an enjoyable short movie that made me ponder some serious questions about what I would do in a similar situation. For instance, what if I looked out my window and saw Godzilla dry humping the skyline? Would I run and hide? The answer was simple; I would loot. Next question. If I was running with a beautiful girl and she fell, what would I do? This is a trick question because I would have been the one who had tripped her in order to throw the monster off my trail.
Two notes: (1) there wasn’t one fat person in the entire movie, not even a scene where a fat guy trips and gets swallowed or nothing, and; (2) Jackie Junior from the Sopranos makes a cameo that I would bet under 5% of the audience will catch. (although I don’t know if Jackie Junior has reached cameo status or he is really just an extra).
As I was exiting the near packed house everyone seemed to be in a joyous mood. Walking past the last row I saw an old Japanese couple weeping. I wanted to reach out to them, to tell them it would be o.k., but I couldn’t. I hadn’t seen such a sight since exiting Gremlins in 84′ and a part of me knew that I would never understand.
Not bad,
DMC
