If you believed the hype, the film eventually known as Cloverfield was destined to be one of the greatest suspense films ever made. Produced by Lost creator J.J. Abrams and written by Lost writer Drew Goddard, fans of the show had reason to be excited. The amateur trailers circulating around online gave fans reason to hope for an old school monster movie. Unfortunately, Cloverfield falls well short of those expectations.
Cloverfield has a very unoriginal story. Some sort of monster attacks New York. That is pretty much the thrust of it. That’s been done in Godzilla, It Came from Beneath the Sea and countless others. The only thing that makes Cloverfield different from all the rest is that director Matt Reeves (Felicity) and the others involved in the project make no effort to explain what the “thing” is, where it came from or what it wants. Having none of this information makes it all seem extraneous and difficult to care about.
Of course, Cloverfield does have human characters. As the film opens, Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) is about to relocate to Japan and his friends are throwing him a going away party. Among the party goers are Rob’s brother Jason (Mike Vogel), his best friend Hud (T.J. Miller), and friends Lily (Jessica) and Marlena (Lizzy Caplan). All of a sudden, the building starts to shake and the news claims a tanker has tipped over near the Statue of Liberty. But outside, as the head of Lady Liberty rolls down the street, it is clear that a tanker is not responsible for the sudden chaos. So, the question quickly becomes, what is?
Meanwhile, Rob’s only concern is to get across town and find his girlfriend Beth (Odette Yustman), who left the party earlier in the evening. With the monster in full attack mode, all of Rob’s party friends decide they have to go with him to check on Beth, even as everyone else is fleeing the city. One can understand being concerned for your girlfriend, but the suspension of disbelief that has to take place to believe that a group of good looking twenty-something’s would go back into the face of danger like that is a bit much.
If the farfetched story line still has you intrigued, the camera gimmickry might make you nauseous. In the beginning of the film, Jason asked Hud to film Rob’s party and document everything that happens. Hud takes the job very seriously and even keeps the camera rolling after the monster attacks. The film is basically what we see through his camera. Since Hud is a terrible videographer, the films footage jumps up and down from side to side and has a lot of dizzying cuts and immediate close ups. All of this no doubt was meant to be like The Blair Witch Project but since the story lacks that films spark and originality, the herky jerkiness of it all may leave you with a headache. I know he’s supposed to be in a state of sheer panic, but if people can’t bare to focus on the screen it’s pretty irrelevant.
Watching Cloverfield, I was reminded of that old catchphrase, “Where’s the Beef?” For guys like J.J. Abrams and Drew Goddard who have come up with some fairly original ideas for Lost, Cloverfield is devoid of originality and substance. People run, they scream they die. There is some blood and some missiles. In the final analysis, Cloverfield lacks a heart. The filmmakers failed to give the story even a slight sense of purpose or direction to grab a hold of.
The DVD is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic screen ratio. Because Cloverfield was made to look like a home movie, nothing here is visually stunning. The colors are flat and the screen is fairly dark. The Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround audio provides a fairly booming soundtrack. The special effects are very clear, but the fact that the filmmakers used consumer grade digital camera at times, makes some spoken dialogue difficult to understand.
Cloverfield has a few special features. Director Matt Reeves delivers an audio commentary; “The Making of Cloverfield” (28:00) is pretty standard stuff most have come to expect from a DVD release. The same can be said for “Cloverfield Visual Effects” (22:13). The third featurette , “I Saw It! It’s Alive! It’s Huge” is about the design of the creature. The final featurette, “Clover Fun” (3:57) is bloopers from the film.
The Cloverfield DVD also includes four deleted scenes titled “Congrats Rob,” “When you’re in Japan,” “I Call That a Date,” and “It’s Going to Hurt,” with optional director commentary. The disc also includes two alternate endings with optional director commentary.
