Review of “Cloverfield”
Schadenfreude - pleasure in the misfortune of others - is a terrific expression but it’s a terrible act. Still, I am man enough to admit that it is a part of my character, and I think one of the reasons I love disaster movies so much. Who didn’t get tingles watching New York about to be smacked down by a 50 storey tidal wave in Deep Impact? Poor New York takes it on the chin again in Cloverfield, part disaster film, part monster movie. This is Felicity meets The Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla, as imagined by pop culture wunderkind JJ Abrams (Felicity, Lost, Alias). Like Blair Witch, film begins with the premise that we are watching camcorder footage recovered after something has befallen its authors. Early footage of a romantic exchange between Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and Beth (Odette Yustman), is soon recorded over for Rob’s farewell by best mate Hud (T.J. Miller).
In a long opening, we spend time getting to know our lead cast, including Rob’s brother Jason (Mike Vogel), Jason’s girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas) and the object of Hud’s affection, Marlene(Lizzy Caplan).Don’t feed bad about scratching your head and saying “who??” after reading that – the cast are complete unknowns (excepting Lizzy Caplan, who was terrific as Janis Ian in Mean Girls), all of whose careers should skyrocket after this – performances are uniformly terrific. Hud’s camera captures the party getting cut short by an explosion downtown, and the head of the Statue of Liberty come sliding down the street. With all hell breaking loose, the gang look for a way off the island and out of the path of an unseen monster through the panic-stricken, dust and debris-hewn streets of New York (scenes unfortunately all to familiar to us – the September 11 references are thick and fast). The camcorder conceit doesn’t get as tired as you think it might. This is like high-octane reality TV - Laguna Beach or The Simple Life the way you secretly want to see them – with eviscerations, with a body count. It adds to the suspense only being able to see from a single point of view. Like most of us with a camera, Hud is slow to react, and what we don’t see, or barely see of the monster is just as frightening as when it finally appears. Older audiences won’t take to the epilepsy-inducing camerawork and lighting, but for everyone else, this film pushes all the right buttons
Cloverfield is exhilarating schadenfreude, peppered with small personal moments amid the carnage.
CK
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