Cloverfield
My wife and I watched — well, tried to watch — the movie Cloverfield last night. The following are the thoughts that filtered through my nauseated, Cloverfield-addled brain when the credits rolled. There are spoilers involved, if you can all them that, so don’t read on if you intend to indulge in this wretched, dimly lighted disaster on your own time.
You may recall the marketing buzz that surrounded this film, produced by Lost‘s J.J. Abrams. Given the amount of time Lost spends building anticipation and then failing miserably to deliver (Stephen King, white courtesy phone, please… Stephen King, white courtesy phone), I should have taken this as a warning. But I’d heard that Cloverfield involved this way cool giant monster in the Godzilla vein, right, and that there was an element of zombie outbreak, yeah? And the Statue of Liberty gets its head ripped off, you know? So, how could I resist?
Resist, I should have.
Cloverfield is roughly 84 minutes of shaky camera work that makes The Blair Witch Project look like it was filmed with a steadicam on a ribbon of glass in the frictionless world of high school physics exam scenarios. Elements within the not-so-original Cloverfield really are just that movie. It’s Blair Witch all over again, except that instead of shouting, “Josh! Josh! Josh! Josh! Guys, I thew away that damn map! Josh, where are you Josh! Josh?” our heroes spend their time going, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Guys, did you see that? God! What was that? Oh my God!”
A better title for the movie would have been, in fact, “Oh my God!” The movie posters should have been completely black, because roughly 80 of the movie’s 84 minutes are completely invisible to the audience, accompanied by the sounds of what might have been an interesting monster movie if only we could see it. Sadly, the remaining four minutes of footage that are actually lighted (presumably with candles) appear to have been taken directly from a camcorder duct-taped to the side of Katherine Hepburn’s head.
Cloverfield tells the story of a Friends cast-like group of, well, young, urban assholes who, as the movie opens, are busy dealing with their shallow, Friends cast-like lives and attending a party for alpha-friend Rob. Rob, the guy who isn’t Ross, and Beth, the woman who isn’t Rachel, are having some kind of spat revolving around the fact that they had a pleasant day together and had sex. When this fact comes out during the party (I can’t say, “comes to light,” because there are maybe 4 or 5 lumens collectively on display for the whole of this film), Rob’s buddy “Hud” (who, originally tasked with videotaping Rob’s going-away party, because Rob is moving to Japan for his job, or something, eventually decides he’s going to videotape everything that ensues when the monster attacks, including his own, grisly, much-deserved death) moves through the room telling everyone who’ll listen that this sexual incident has happened. It’s unclear why he does this, except that Hud is very shallow and incapable of any human emotion save startlement.
Five minutes into the movie, my wife expressed the opinion that she wanted all of these people to die. I heartily agreed. A bit later, she asked me, “Is it wrong for me to root for the monster?” I responded, “I just assumed we were supposed to side with the creature.”
Friends Rob, Jason, Hud, Marlena, and Lily end up running across Midtown, or something, when the giant Cloverfield monster attacks. The only reason I know that this occurs in the movie is because advance marketing for the movie told me so. Had I not read anything about Cloverfield, I’d still be sitting in front of my television wondering where the hell those 84 minutes went, and what I was doing for them, and whether I’d gone blind or my television had broken because I couldn’t actually see anything on screen. As it was, the movie is so incredibly pointless and hard to follow (not to mention actively, physically nauseating, as Hud proves he’s the least qualified person in all of Manhattan to operate a video camera) that the viewer is left feeling not just confused, but actively hostile and angry.
I think if J.J. Abrams had magically popped up in my living room as the credits rolled (the music over the end credits was the best part of the movie), my first thought would not have been, “How did you get into my living room, J.J. Abrams?” No, my first thought would have been, “I’m going to punch J.J. Abrams in the face.”
With Cloverfield, in fact, J.J. Abrams has made the list of movie auteurs that I compile and maintain mentally. It is a list of people whom, I have promised myself, I will punch in the face should I ever have the opportunity to meet them. Mr. Abrams joins M. Night Shyamalan on that list. I vowed to beat Mr. Shyamalan savagely after I watched the hideous, demoralizing affront to God and Humanity that is Signs.)
Anyway, the Cloverfield monster throws a bridge at Jason, or something, and he dies, and later Rob has to tell his mother via cellphone that Jason was killed by the giant unseen monster. Marlena is bitten by one of the parasites that fall off of the giant Cloverfield monster, and of course it logically follows that she starts bleeding out her eyes like an ebola victim until either her torso explodes on its own, or some Army guy shoots her in the head. It’s impossible to say which, because the movie is so incredibly hard to see. However she checks out, we’re all glad for it. I’m certain Marlena herself was happy to get clear of this movie, however messily she went.
The rest of the cast soldiers on. Eventually the giant monster takes the time to eat half of Hud personally, and that’s fine by me, because the movie teased me by crashing a helicopter carrying the protagonists — a crash they had the gall to survive. I think Lily actually survives the movie, and I’m bitter about that, because I really do think everyone involved in the film should be dead.
Anyway, Rob and Beth express their love for each other under a bridge in Central Park, just before the monster kills them, or the Army blows them into meaty fragments trying to bomb the monster; that’s not really clear, either. Is the monster killed? Oh, who the hell cares. I think I should have spent that 84 minutes flossing, or getting a head start on next year’s taxes, or anything other than watching Cloverfield.
Die, die, die, all of you, and by “you,” I mean everyone in the movie, and for good measure, anyone involved in bringing the movie to theaters and eventually to DVD. Die. Just die. All of you.
Die.