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Cloverfield Redux Speaking of marketing budgets, I want to make it clear that I don't get anything from anybody to review these movies, not even a free ticket to the show. You can be assured you're getting my honest opinion. Whenever I do get any swag or free DVD sent to me, I am sure to let you know. Secondly, I avoid reviews and marketing hype as I can for the movies (except for watching the trailers obviously). I want as little influence as possible from the marketing machine as I can realistically get. OK, with that out of the way let's get to my thoughts on the film. My thoughts will be rife with spoilers, so here's the obligatory : *****SPOILER WARNING***** If you want to see whether I stick with my "No" recommendation then skip to the last paragraph. But, seriously, I’m going to reveal the key points in the movie as well as how it ends, so if you have any thoughts of going to see it then stop reading. The trailer opens with the same info as the trailer. It says this is video recovered at the area formerly known as Central Park from an operation known as the titular "Cloverfield." That's my first problem with the film. The government would never name this operation "Cloverfield." It'd be "Operation Thunderboom" or "Operation Manhattan Freedom." The gimmick is that the whole film is shot from the perspective of this handheld digital video camera. If you have any motion sickness problems this film is not for you. I'm usually fine, but ten minutes in I was getting a bit queasy. I settle down, but Mrs. BBspot would've left the theater. Overall, I didn't buy into it. I didn't believe these actors as just regular people on a video camera. I always felt like they were actors trying to act like real people on a video camera. If you're going to use that gimmick then you have to make it work, and I don't think the creators did. Let's go to the notes: "All good-looking hipsters" at the opening party (which went on way too long). I've never been to a party where everyone was attractive. If this were some supermodel convention I could buy it, but it wasn't. Maybe I just go to the wrong parties, but this didn't help with the believability. Next not: "Monster" about 30 minutes in. Eventually, we do get a good look at the creature. The effects are good, and I thought the monster was cool looking. It's big and comes from the sea. It also drops some giant headcrab-type creatures from it to add to the thrills. "Product placements" are obvious in this movie. I groaned when the guy focused in on an ad for a cell phone (I won't do any product placement in this review) and the people stopped in front of a store to talk with the name of the store visible behind them. "Fake" – by this I wanted to remind myself that I didn't buy into the characters motivations. I didn't believe they would act and react to the situations the way they are portrayed in the film. People put there lives at risk. In one inexplicable event, a military guy let's them go into the danger zone to save their friend. I was thinking there's no effing way that would ever happen. The situations seemed contrived to move the plot along. Once again this is the result of the gimmick they used of "actual footage," if it were a regular film you expect it. "Impaled" – OK, here's another one of those believability problems. They finally reach their injured friend. She's impaled by a steel rod through the shoulder. She's been lying there for an hour or so. It takes all of them to yank her up off the rod. I'm thinking, "this girl would be bleeding like crazy once they yank her up." But she's fine; she's able to walk down fifty flights of stairs. I think she'd be in a little worse shape than she was. "Lame" – the way the helicopter is brought down was total cheese. I didn't buy it at all. Why would the helicopter be flying along that flight path? Wouldn't it be flying in the opposite direction of the monster? Lame indeed. Let's see how I did on my predictions. I said in the Trailer Review: The group of friends will escape Manhattan finally, but not without some casualties. The government will be responsible for the monster in some way. Someone in the group of people will figure out how to cause a giant explosion to destroy the monster. Sequel potential will be maintained.There were definitely some casualties, more than I predicted and technically only one of them escaped. It was hinted that the government might be responsible for the creature, but never confirmed. These people were uninvolved in the destruction of the creature. I suppose there could be a sequel, but nothing was explicitly left at the end. I didn't do so well on the predictions this time. That mostly had to do with me avoiding the hype machine. I didn't know that the whole premise would be a group of people with a handheld camera. Now should I stick with my "No" in my recommendation? That's a tough question. I give the movie points for trying a different format from a standard movie. At some instances it worked, but most of the time it didn't for me. The effects overall were good. The monster was good, but didn't play as big of a part as I thought it would. I'd say the movie lands in the middle for me, but I'll have to say I'll stick with my "No" recommendation. Filed under Musings by Brian - Fri Jan 18, 2008 @ 2:06 PM (Permalink - Discuss) |
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