Cloverfield

Watched Cloverfield last night. And I can honestly say that it was “alright.” The very definition of nothing special. I am no more disposed to the film now I have seen it than I was before I saw it. My opinions have not changed. I still think it is a damp squib of a film. Or maybe a wet fart would be a better description.

The main problem with it, aside from an asinine script and the monster resembling a desiccated old man getting out of the bath, was the attempts at realism. Now, I’d argue that if your film involves blowing up the whole of Manhattan to kill a large green monster, realism shouldn’t be your main concern. Because, y’know, the basic premise of the film requires you to leave realism at the door. But what was really grating about Cloverfield for me was their use of shakycam – and the implication that this was all being filmed live.

Shakycam is a really innovative production technique – if you have been in a coma since the early nineties and have never seen an episode of NYPD Blue. For some, it makes a production more real. For others, well, they’re reaching for the sick bag. For me, the technique – once ground breaking and innovative – is now hackneyed and clichéd.

On top of that, there is the problem that making a film as a video diary can only work if your plot supports it. The Blair Witch Project, for example, does support the format – of course they are filming everything, they are making a film. And Rec works well too, because – again – it is a TV crew who would be filming everything. But it stretches credibility to the limit to think that, when faced with a giant monster crushing New York and expelling killer mutant spiders onto the street – that anyone would be filming all of it. Sure, they might film the first ten minutes, before realising that actually this is not a lot of fun and that running away. Likewise, the idea that people would film the events of Diary of the Dead is nonsense. If zombies were trying to eat your face (and not in a good way) you’d probably be running away as fast as your little legs could carry you.

Also, there is the scale of the stories. Both The Blair Witch Project and Rec deal with small groups of people under siege. Cloverfield tells with the destruction of a city. The scope of the latter film is far wider than the former two pictures. So why on earth restrict the means through which you can tell the story by having it seen solely through the camera lens of just one group of people? Cloverfield was never going to be original, and could have been enhanced by having a more traditional, disaster movie framework to it. The way they chose to make their film was a gimmick and, sadly, that gimmick damaged the film as a whole.