Monster Mash-Up

“We get the hell out of Manhattan. Now,” Jason Hawkins (Mike Vogel)
declares early in Cloverfield. His reasons for wanting off the island
are pretty legit: Something’s attacking the city, leaving behind a
massive swath of splintered skyscrapers, burning streets, and bloody
bodies. Like Jason, we don’t have much of an idea about what’s doing
the attacking, exactly, or why—but yeah, getting the hell out
seems like a really good plan.

Actually, hold up: Ever since the teaser for the then-untitled
Cloverfield played in front of last summer’s Transformers, we’ve known
a bit about what’s going on: That Cloverfield is a monster movie, that
it’s shot all Blair Witch-style, and that it comes from executive
producer J.J. Abrams, who—with Alias, Lost, and the third
Mission: Impossible—has proven himself a highly competent creator
of pop entertainment. But with Cloverfield, the talented Abrams has
been outdone, perhaps, by Paramount Pictures’ marketing team: Carefully
releasing crumbs of info about Cloverfield, they’ve managed to keep
pretty much everybody, from casual moviegoers to obsessive geeks, in
the dark. At this point, the question isn’t what’s attacking New York,
but rather if the oh-so-mysterious Cloverfield can live up to the
hype.

It does. Intense and bombastic, Cloverfield is a short, punchy,
exhilarating riff on the Godzilla flicks of the ’50s and ’60s and the
disaster epics of the ’70s. But it’s decidedly personal and postmodern,
too: Unlike the polished bluster of Bruckheimer or the popcorn thrills
of Spielberg, Cloverfield is messy and clunky, thanks to its gimmick of
shooting epic-sized disaster with digital camcorders. It’s a
contrivance, sure, but what impresses is how well it’s done: I’ve seen
countless monsters demolish countless New York landmarks, but I can’t
think of any time it’s felt as fresh and fun as it does in Cloverfield.
Director Matt Reeves—along with cinematographer Michael
Bonvillain and editor Kevin Stitt—has masterfully captured the
clumsy, hypnotic immediacy of home videos: Cloverfield‘s eerily
detailed, weirdly believable, and entirely engaging.

Those looking for spoiler-y details should probably go elsewhere:
The impressive monster’s best experienced in the rare glimpses that
Reeves grudgingly allows. (I’ll leave it to a few of the film’s
panicked characters to describe the creature, and they have some
accurate and worrisome adjectives: “giant,” “alive,” and “winning.”)
And if you’ve seen the teaser, you already know 90 percent of the plot.
(Short version: Hipsters throw a party. Monster attacks.) Cloverfield‘s
characters aren’t brilliant, but they’re likeable enough, from
reluctant hero Rob (Michael Stahl-David) to his pal Hud (T.J. Miller),
who insists on documenting the catastrophe. (It’s Hud who holds
Cloverfield‘s frenetic camera, though his beleaguered voiceover is his
more charming contribution: “I can’t take all this running, man!” he
gasps shortly after Cloverfield‘s characters have begun their dash for
survival.)

Despite a seriously pissed-off monster and a few gripping set
pieces, the film’s characters end up holding their own, thanks to a
witty script by Buffy scribe Drew Goddard and skillful direction by
Reeves. There are a few stumbles—the drama can get a bit
overwrought, and considering the flick’s setting, there are a few
unavoidable but awkward callbacks to 9/11. But these hiccups are small
and forgivable: Ultimately, Goddard and Reeves know they’re making a
glorified B movie, and 99 percent of the time, Cloverfield is lean,
fast, and cool, a film that promises—and delivers—as much
bang per buck as possible.