I literally just got home from a late-night showing of "Cloverfield" with Snowden, and I want my $8.25 back. It's the kind of film that makes me want to choke a baby. It started out with such an enticing premise. I'm actually amazed at how badly they screwed it up. "Cloverfield" commits the cardinal sin for any monster movie: it's painfully boring.
It starts out looking like some sort of lost "earthquake" episode of "The OC." At the beginning, we're treated to plenty of poorly-framed shots of people about whom we know or care absolutely nothing. Our tour guide is a doofus named "Hud," a guy whose range of emotion runs from "indifferent and confused" to "scared and confused" to "tired and confused" to "dead." Now I realize "dead" isn't an emotion. Rather, it's the state I was wishing upon myself about forty minutes into "Cloverfield." Some jerk-ass named Rob is apparently moving to Japan. I guess he was promoted to Vice President of something or other (which, based on his behavior in the rest of the film, probably means that he's working for a company that only hires people with crippling mental illnesses). The film begins with his surprise going-away party, and Hud has been assigned the task of recording the night's events.
The monster (what little we actually see of it) is, surprisingly enough, not a cloud of black smoke, as I'd originally assumed. It's a spider-like creature with a squid-like face and an uncanny ability to hide in plain sight among buildings that look nothing like it. Also, it appears that the video camera Hud is carrying (the one we're supposed to believe lasted over seven hours without recharging) is made of some kind of material that draws the monster to it like a moth to a flame. Despite all the visually interesting parts of New York City, the monster is enthralled by the sight of a twenty-something idiot with a Canon XL-2.
Hud, who serves not only as our trusty cameraman, but as our default narrator as well, is clearly supposed to provide the comic relief. Instead, he just makes you wish the monster would just eat him and be done with it. Among his best lines is this little gem (asking another character about a bunch of mini-monsters that attacked them in a subway tunnel): "So those things just came out of nowhere, didn't they?" Brilliant, Hud. You should give Bob Saget a call. I hear they're always looking for bright young people to join The Mob, and as long as all the questions on your particular episode of "1 vs 100" involve things that you just witnessed four seconds ago, I'd say you're a shoo-in to win it all. Hud makes Spicoli, that insufferable moron from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (played by insufferable moron Sean Penn) look like Will freakin' Hunting.
The vast majority of the film consists of incoherent footage of random people running away from an unseen monster, interspersed with two of the nine lines that make up the entirety of the film's script: "Oh my God!" and "What the hell is that?" The dialog was clearly written by an autistic child, and I, for one, am glad to finally see big-budget Hollywood films embracing a demographic that is normally reserved for slave labor and makeup testing.
In spite of two... maybe three great set-pieces, "Cloverfield" is, after all is said and done, an immensely disappointing movie. Too much Hud and crappy dialog; not enough destruction and Hud-killing. I will give it this: It's got hands-down the best sound I've ever heard in a monster movie. Everything in the entire film that works... well, it works solely because of the sound. The good scenes may actually be worth the price of a rental if only for the sound.
With a Certified Fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes to "Cloverfield"'s credit, I'd shed a bit of my cynicism before walking into the theater. Too bad. It deserved none of its hype, and every critic who gave this film a positive review was either high or lying. Or paid. I think my whole opinion can be summed up in what I said to Snowden as we left the theater: "Now that would have been a great movie for MST3K." He agreed.
Incidentally, if you're interested in seeing a good monster movie, you should go out and rent "The Host."
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