Maddie and I saw Cloverfield tonight. Great characters, great monsters, but an abject failure of storytelling. After both this and Blair Witch, I'm convinced that first-person limited belongs in print, not on the screen. Add to the fact that although I inferred a positive moral out of the movie ("earn the privilege of dying well"), the movie's contents were pretty nihilistic, and I'm just bloody sick of Gen-X nihilism.
Overall C+ since the baseline concept was so good; definitely a matinee at best, and I can't imagine owning the DVD.
11 comments:
Hmmmmmmmm, definately sounds like the formula for making a rubbersuit monster movie has been lost.
Sad.
All Hail Godzilla!!!!!!!
Jim-
I think that was kind of the point of the move--to point out the total Gen-X nihilism. And come on, they sicced a Tarrasque on NYC...this wasn't serious from the beginning.
I don't think the abject failure of storytelling happened because it wasn't serious enough - I mean, it's a monster movie, no one seeing a monster movie should expect a social tretise, so no disappointment there.
The failure was a failure to make me care. The characters were great, the pacing was darn good and the story was totally fun. So why didn't I care? Well, either I'm a stone-cold elven freak (entirely possible:-) or the first -person POV did the opposite of what it was meant to do, which is bring me (the audience member) *into* the action. Instead it alienated me and left me with a bunch of left-brain questions like "what *was* that thing anyway" and "what did the army do about it?" I know, these questions were not the point, but they very distracting - enough to make me want an after-action report. Anyway, that's my two cents for what it's worth :-)
Mike: GREAT rubber suit. This was almost a really good movie.
Anna: I can't imagine anyone having such a corncob up their trumpet as to go about making a movie just to point out Gen-X nihilism (which'd kinda be like making a movie say the sky's blue). I think it's just a cool monster movie with a cool premise and a really lame ending.
Hrm... Jim, I think you're totally right. I really liked Cloverfield... but it is definitely a FLICK, not a movie. Judged as a flick, it's brilliant.
I actually thought the ending was good. Especially since they tell you right in the beginning where they find the camera.
Of course, I enjoyed watching the "Beautiful people" get eaten, too... but that's just me...
There is something to be said for that. Having a giant monster tapdance on the great yuppie dream and all its little toys is a great way to spend two hours.
Although I am not so fired up about having same said monster tapdance on Paladin Howitzer. Call it a personal thing.
Yeah...
Although I wonder at the power of the script that it could shrug off so much ordinance. Normally you'd think "fleshy bits + Paladin = stinky vapor", not to mention what I'd suppose were Paveway's etc from the F/A-18's (do they even still use Paveways, or am I totally outdated?).
Actually, there's a visual clue to that embedded in the film... has to do with how the critter moves...
Sorry, it doesn't roll with punches faster than rapidly expanding ordinance. Ok, it takes the "whallop" part well enough, but that doesn't explain why nothing's penetrating it. It'd have to have self-sealing, burn-proof, super-elastic skin. If you look at the terminal ballistics dumb ordinance (like your average bullet), penetration occurs because the target material is crushed into a gel/liquid, then pushed aside. Magnify that when the ordinance is exploding, fragmenting (or worse, if it's a shape-charge's gas-jet)!
I don't care how much you're built on springs, you've gotta have Magic Hide(TM) to survive that. Luckily, thanks to the Power of the Plot, it did. :o)
Sigh, they always do...
And we still do use Paveways, but they are an improved version with a new name. But everyone pretty much still calls them Paveways (even the Air Force).
That is one thing the "New" Godzilla (as in the circa 1999ish) had on the old ones. I can totally see him dying because an entire wing of F18s blast him with freaken Mavericks. To paraphrase a truely great saying: "that will take the fight our of anything".
The original saying was "A Flamethrower will take the fight out of anything."
Wow.. I had the opposite reaction.. I thought the movie was excellent (A-) specifically because there was no 'storytelling'.
JJ Abrams set out to create an American monster.. That's it. Cloverfield was a 'slice of life' monster movie. Think of it for a second as if you just found the camcorder on your own and watched it. You wouldn't get any answers and presumably having lived through the attack yourself, you might not care about the people on the tape.. Particularly after you see what a bunch of douchebags they are at the beginning.
IMHO, Cloverfield wasn't meant to make anyone think about anything. It was intended to be more of a mockumentary of "this bad shit happened to NYC. Here's all we know".
If you watch the final scene when they are in the Ferris Wheel, you will see an object (supposedly a satellite) crash into the water and make a huge crash. The viral background for the movie paints something suggesting that Big Evil Corp knocked an unknown satellite out of the sky.
The two theories seem to be: said 'satellite' was a spacecraft, or its a Cthulhu-esque 'horrible monster that lives beneath the sea' angle. If it is the latter, the creatures resistance to bombing could be sci-fi explained by it being native to ocean depths that have tremendous pressure.
Me, I don't care.. It's a monster. Nothing ever penetrated Godzilla either. As I recall, they nuked him in a couple movies and he wasn't fazed at all..
The reason you don't have an 'after -action report' on the monster is because it isn't dead. If you stay through the last of the credits there is a quick voice speaking. You can look on YouTube and the like and find that that voice reversed says "It's still alive!".
I'm positive there will be a Cloverfield II. I think this one was just intended to be a fun monster movie that, if received well, sets up the potential to make a small franchise out of it. Of course, JJ Abrams has also demonstrated repeatedly that he is capable of just telling a story then walking away so who knows.
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