If you suffer from motion sickness or inner ear problems don't go see CLOVERFIELD without a barf bag. If shaky camera moves make you dizzy, don't go see CLOVERFIELD. If you enjoy thrill rides and first-person shoot 'em up games then head for your local movie theater immediately to see CLOVERFIELD.
A cross between a rabid THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT with Japan's multi-GODZILLA films mixed with elements of WAR OF THE WORLDS and LOST, CLOVERFIELD is LOST'S wonderkind J.J. Abrams current foray into feature films.
Told from the POV of lunky guy pal who doesn't know how to run a video cam (T.J. Miller as Hud), CLOVERFIELD begins slowly as we watch a going away party for Rob (Michael Stahl-David) who's leaving Manhattan, all his friends, and one special girlfriend, Beth, for a great new job 
in Japan. The camera is passed around by people who don't want to run it winding up in the hands of Hud who is told to get comments from Rob's friends about what a great guy he is. A big explosion is heard and their lower Manhattan building shakes; the crowd quiets down as they turn to watch the news on the TV reporting about an earthquake. But the earthquake reports don't mention the loud unearthly animal roars reverberating aroun
d them, and they don't explain the explosions and RPG's exploding in the distance. As usual, the public is the last to know that their lives as they knew it will soon be over.
The partygoers run to the roof to see what's going on and they arrive just in time to see a huge explosion in the distance as the city succumbs to a blackout. The kids panic 
and run into the streets just in time to see a huge fireball streak across the sky in their direction. It lands right in front of them and after the smoke clears they realize it's the head from the Statue of Liberty (for the audience memories of the iconic scene featuring the Statue of Liberty in PLANET OF THE APES and the headless statue featured in the poster of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK ensue). Half of the party-goers are killed when the 
head lands and the others run off in a panic traversing the horridly changed streets of Manhattan.
In the distance huge monsters can be seen as skyscrapers crumble and smoke and debris fills the streets reminding anyone with a memory of the horrid events of 9/11. The surviving friends try to leave the island of Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge; in the distance they see a decapitated Statue of Liberty and a capsized oil tanker leaking oil into the Hudson River. Just as the kids start onto the bridge it is struck by a monster and for the second time in two months the poor Brooklyn Bridge is completely smashed (just last month I AM LEGEND 
also killed the poor iconic Brooklyn Bridge). No one has mentioned it, but this reviewer wondered why anyone with half a brain would run towards destruction, as the bridge is closer to the destruction than the building the kids are in. Wouldn't they choose to run uptown, or perhaps over the Williamsburg Bridge rather than towards the monster? Woops! Excuse me, for a minute there I was using real life logic!
With their escape route collapsed the kids turn back and Rob receives a call from his girlfriend, Beth, who is trapped under debris in her Dad's upper Westside apartment. Now 
on a mission, Rob focuses on reaching Beth to save her. His three friends tag along, after all, where else are they going to go? Rob loses the call from Beth as his phone battery dies and he smashes a window in an electronic store to search for a battery for his cell phone. They must live in an alternative universe, as batteries on earth do not come fully charged for immediate use. But, of course, this being the movies, Rob's new battery works just fine. He insists on saving Beth and the others don't want to be separated from each other so they all tag along.
While in the electronic store Hud points his jerky camera at a TV news report playing news footage of a creature captured briefly by hovering helicopters, briefly giving us a better view of the monster. As the US military ground forces arrive to fight the monsters, lobster-like parasites the size of a Great Dane fall from the monsters' body and attack everyone in sight. The kids run into the subway where they huddle and shake while trying to recover from what they've witnessed above ground while the lights flicker on and off. Why they think they're safe underground in a closed and dark subway system is also beyond reason.
The kids finally decide to try to make their way uptown to Beth using the darkened subway tunnels (only in the movies!) where, of course, they are attacked in the dark by the parasitic lobster monsters. One of the kids, Hud's romantic interest Marlena (Lizzy Caplan), is bitten by a creature and soon they reach an army field hospital where thousands of people are laying on stretchers as far as the eye can see. Marlena begins to bleed from every orifice and the soldiers drag her away as her body explodes behind a curtain.
The remaining kids continue on to Beth's apartment facing more crazy 
challenges and many monsters and explosions. They try to evacuate via an army helicopter but a monster is hit by a B-2 Stealth Bomber and retaliates by going after their helicopter. I won't ruin the ending for you, but suffice it to say that this is your typical monster in New York film and if you don't mind the herky-jerky camera movements you will likely be fascinated by events and the monumentally poor decision-making skills of the cast.
J.J. Abrams said he thought of the idea of a new monster movie when he visited a Japan toy store while promoting MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III. He also said the decapitated Statue of liberty scene was inspired by the poster of the 1981 film ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. And clearly he was also inspired by his own TV series LOST in which another huge unseen monster threatens the cast whenever a plot point fizzles out.
Supposedly the title of the film, Cloverfield, was the title of this film from the beginning and came from the fictional government's case designated name for the monster. Clover Field is also the original name of the Santa Monica field on which the Santa Monica Airport now lives, as well as the 
name of a street near Abrams office, which is located on Olympic Blvd in Santa Monica (to get to his office one would take the Cloverfield exit off the 10 Freeway).
With many 9/11 allusions, CLOVERFIELD could have just as easily been called 9/11:THE CLOVERFIELD THRILL RIDE. The film takes us inside the buildings and the streets of Manhattan to show us how things must've looked to the unfortunate people stuck in Manhattan on that fatal date. This might make you hate this film, or it might make you appreciate it. It's all up to you and what you deem appropriate for our post-9/11 world. For this reviewer, CLOVERFIELD was thankfully short (74 minutes) and sweet with enough thrills to qualify this film as an E-Ticket ride.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Digital Dogs rating: B
MPAA rating: PG-13 for violence, terror and disturbing images
Running Time: 74 minutes
Producers J.J.Abrams, Sherryl Clark, Guy Riedel, Bryan Burke, Director Matt Reeves, Screenplay Drew Goddard, Editor Kevin Stitt, DP Michael Bonvillain, Actors Lizzy Caplan, T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Odette Yustman, Jessica Lucas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
© 2008 by Digital Dogs
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
--- Digital Dogs is gather's Los Angeles Movie Correspondent ---
Digital Dogs' column, HOLLYWOOD POV, published every Thursday to Gather Essentials: Movies is an insider's look at the art, people, and product of Hollywood.
Digital Dogs is an opinionated writer, editor, and digital designer who lives and works in the entertainment capital of the world. DigiDogs writes critiques, opinion pieces, and news stories that focus on the business, people, and places of Hollywood. DigiDogs' unique film reviews are usually written well before a film's release date, and definitely worth the advance look at the films that influence the world.
You can find all of Digital Dogs' HOLLYWOOD POV columns by using the unique tag of "digidogs" or "hollywood pov." Keep up with Digital Dogs' other postings and Gather activity by joining their Gather network -- just click here - digitaldogs.gather.com - and select the orange "Connect" button on the left-hand side of the page. To see a complete listing of articles by Digital Dogs, click here.
You'll find Digital Dogs and other Movie Correspondents, plus celebrity content and plenty of other movie buffs at Movies.gather.com
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
rate
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 22
Thanks! :-)
SciFi/Horror is my fave genre and I was really looking forward to seeing CLOVERFIELD. Even though I was a bit arch in my review, I did sit through the entire film and I did enjoy it, though I felt like a headache was coming on for the entire film. If the camera was a bit less jerky and the beginning establishing party scene was cut down a bit more and the kids behavior a little less insane I prolly would've rated this a little higher.
It did get my E-Ticket ride rating and my eyes did bleed, so all in all it's certainly worth the money to pay to see this. I could definitely sit through this again via netflix or tivo.
I think JJ suffers from a strange affliction in which he's unable to capitalize on the great concepts he comes up with. With every incarnation (Alias, Lost) I'm always excited when I see the world he's created. But without fail, about four episodes into it, I get bored and realize he could have executed it significantly better.
But then again, he's the multi millionaire and I'm the guy who's critiquing on the internet. So I guess he's doing alright.
Thanks Digi D!
I'm a bit ashamed to say that the writer's strike is kind of a boon for me as I've still got TONS o' stuff on tivo that I haven't had the chance to see yet.
I've finally figured you out - you're a 16 year-old guy who has occasional lapses into liking "Grown-up" films (LoL)
I felt a little trapped inside the Camera PoV, but sure it's a 21st century Godzilla where we don't really care about the stars/victims.
BTW - I really need one of those cameras - they get chewed by monsters, get dropped from 20 feet and keep on ticking - amazing.
((((not!))))
That just happens to be my true demographic! I only wish I were that young!
And you're right, I want one of those cams too. It was simply amazing how Hud could continue to roll tape (and frame the action) while running from gigantic monsters who could wreck buildings with a single breath. I kept wondering if he had taped the cam onto his forehead.
But really people, isn't this what's happening with all of our media? Everyone seems to be busy dumbing everything down for those with short attention spans (read: those who grew up with Sesame Street and then MTV).
You pretty much told the plot of the whole movie.
But now that you said what you said, I have to say this was an interesting
movie, but about 2/3 of the way in I was feeling kind of sick for a bit.
Also, it was not that realistic in terms of dialog, and actions.
But it was worth watching.
The last thing is that the movie has no resolution, so you do
not have any idea what happened or where the monster
came from. There is all kinds of speculation on the Internet,
but not very realitistic.
One thing is that the law of physics say that nothing with
a skeleton like life on Earth can scale up to the size
of something like that. People were saying it was from
way under the ocean, but if you read about ocean life,
when something comes up from the depths of the
ocean it pretty much dies because of the pressure
difference.
I would like to see a sequel, but it had better be out
there fast or I'll just plain lose interest. i am kind of
sorry I saw this because there really was no story,
you never know what happened. It was like playing
a video game. I wish Hollywood would stop making
movies for videgame players ... can't they just play
videogames?
:)
Kidding! Anyway, thanks for the warnings for those with a tendency to motion sickness or inner ear problems. I did hear from some people who really didn't like the "shaky" effect but others loved the movie. One person I knew felt quite dizzy and didn't like it so I guess that is a factor to some people. I wonder how many?
It certainly jumped up the charts upon release! Very nice review.
And Bruce - sorry if i gave up anything about this film that you didn't already know from the copious advance media storm, but really, there isn't much new here that you already don't know about the film - even if you hadn'tr ead my review. It's the same old monster who invades a big city story, the only thing new and different about it is that it's told from the POV of a shaky hand-held vidcam by unknown actors.