Post by rra on May 1, 2008 17:23:48 GMT -5
(NOTE: I'll be trying to see IRON MAN this weekend, so that review will be up ASAP. Meanwhile, yet another 2008 release goes under the RRA microscope...)
CLOVERFIELD (2008) - ***1/2
Talking with someone who actually saw BLADE RUNNER in its original release in 1982, he told me that the biggest reason why he loved that movie was that unlike any other previous cinema look at the future city, it's not seen from outer space but from the streets. You're looking up, not down.
If RUNNER was such the case for the sci-fi genre, then CLOVERFIELD is for monster movies. No more men in rubber suits stomping on cool miniatures, or equally cheesy cheap CGI models running amok. Well, we still get the later in CLOVERFIELD, but for once the star itself isn't the creature but the people trying to haul ass away from it.
Now unlike (too many) people on the internet, I didn't get sucked up into the ridiculous as goofy hell hype where I was trying to analyze the value behind vague photographs or the title itself. It's just so incredibly boring and cyclical how everyone hype-urbates something, then trash it upon release like new video games.
And really, how could I care if I'm not a fan of producer J.J. Abrams? His ALIAS was goofy, and LOST is more meandering than TWIN PEAKS in getting to the goddamn point. Trust me, I was ready to nuke CLOVERFIELD back to Monster Island, where Godzilla would bully him with a daily wedgie.
Instead, by the wings of Mothra, I found myself pleasantly shocked with CLOVERFIELD.
From the sterile-if-ominous bureaucratical classified screen to the supposedly "recovered" video tape cutting back and forth between a romantic tranquil day from the past to indeed the last party the Big Apple will ever enjoy, I figured this movie could go only two ways: Work or Fail. Just like Manhattan after the creature has its day, there won't literally be a middle ground.
But the moment that CLOVERFIELD drove towards "Work" is that one moment when the film explains in a subtle if not incredibly subtle moment the significance of the tape recorded over. People complain about CLOVERFIELD and its lengthy set-up, but its like DIE HARD.
It takes its time to carefully place the story elements and characters together, and when the other shoe indeed drops, its actually the severed head of the Statue of Liberty. Finally, I get what the poster for ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK promised.
CLOVERFIELD is the movie that THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, another hyped-up "faux-documentary," so tried to be but failed to booger out. The chief reason perhaps is that unlike BLAIR, director Matt Reeves evokes a sincere organic atmosphere of dread, fear, and suspense.
If you are aware of my displeasure of the failure that is recent Hollywood horror, it's nice to have a thrill-jump fest that actually works. While we concentrate on these survivors, we know that in the off-screen movie elsewhere, the mostly unseen terrible monster could be heard stomping, wrecking buildings, and the military's impotent war against it. Remember this point.
Indeed, when the hero makes his march to save his girlfriend through the subway and the eerie-deserted streets of New York City, I must say I had deja vue memories of Walter Hill's masculine classic THE WARRIORS.
While that one was a fantasy-action picture where we generally accept such a decision as the only choice for a man to make, we all know that the one made in CLOVERFIELD is a foolhardy one, much like the leader's choice to barricade against the zombies in Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
In fact, the only thing about CLOVERFIELD that bugs me is the climax. Like I wrote earlier, you felt the giant's presence either up-close or far away. But for it to come out of no where and sneak up on the heroes? It's almost as if Abrams/Reeves wanted to appease the nerds who want finally a full close-up shot of the star, and they caved in. It's just so silly.
While one may wonder how a camera could have survived all of this, its perhaps a compliment that I never dramatically questioned why afterwards they pick the camera back up.
With a reported $30 million budget, with more than 2/3rds going to the CGI, this CLOVERFIELD feels like many recent Hollywood productions that use the resources and media machine of the major studios, but with a creative indie cinema approach much like Doug Liman's THE BOURNE IDENTITY.
Indeed CLOVERFIELD is a harrowing dark movie without answers, and a brave choice of a logical conclusion for a genre that's more satisfying and successful than BLAIR WITCH and the recent THE MIST were.
Yet even the monster menace and its parasites that couldn't be stopped will probably be made humbled by the Paramount mountain with a sequel.
CLOVERFIELD (2008) - ***1/2
Talking with someone who actually saw BLADE RUNNER in its original release in 1982, he told me that the biggest reason why he loved that movie was that unlike any other previous cinema look at the future city, it's not seen from outer space but from the streets. You're looking up, not down.
If RUNNER was such the case for the sci-fi genre, then CLOVERFIELD is for monster movies. No more men in rubber suits stomping on cool miniatures, or equally cheesy cheap CGI models running amok. Well, we still get the later in CLOVERFIELD, but for once the star itself isn't the creature but the people trying to haul ass away from it.
Now unlike (too many) people on the internet, I didn't get sucked up into the ridiculous as goofy hell hype where I was trying to analyze the value behind vague photographs or the title itself. It's just so incredibly boring and cyclical how everyone hype-urbates something, then trash it upon release like new video games.
And really, how could I care if I'm not a fan of producer J.J. Abrams? His ALIAS was goofy, and LOST is more meandering than TWIN PEAKS in getting to the goddamn point. Trust me, I was ready to nuke CLOVERFIELD back to Monster Island, where Godzilla would bully him with a daily wedgie.
Instead, by the wings of Mothra, I found myself pleasantly shocked with CLOVERFIELD.
From the sterile-if-ominous bureaucratical classified screen to the supposedly "recovered" video tape cutting back and forth between a romantic tranquil day from the past to indeed the last party the Big Apple will ever enjoy, I figured this movie could go only two ways: Work or Fail. Just like Manhattan after the creature has its day, there won't literally be a middle ground.
But the moment that CLOVERFIELD drove towards "Work" is that one moment when the film explains in a subtle if not incredibly subtle moment the significance of the tape recorded over. People complain about CLOVERFIELD and its lengthy set-up, but its like DIE HARD.
It takes its time to carefully place the story elements and characters together, and when the other shoe indeed drops, its actually the severed head of the Statue of Liberty. Finally, I get what the poster for ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK promised.
CLOVERFIELD is the movie that THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, another hyped-up "faux-documentary," so tried to be but failed to booger out. The chief reason perhaps is that unlike BLAIR, director Matt Reeves evokes a sincere organic atmosphere of dread, fear, and suspense.
If you are aware of my displeasure of the failure that is recent Hollywood horror, it's nice to have a thrill-jump fest that actually works. While we concentrate on these survivors, we know that in the off-screen movie elsewhere, the mostly unseen terrible monster could be heard stomping, wrecking buildings, and the military's impotent war against it. Remember this point.
Indeed, when the hero makes his march to save his girlfriend through the subway and the eerie-deserted streets of New York City, I must say I had deja vue memories of Walter Hill's masculine classic THE WARRIORS.
While that one was a fantasy-action picture where we generally accept such a decision as the only choice for a man to make, we all know that the one made in CLOVERFIELD is a foolhardy one, much like the leader's choice to barricade against the zombies in Romero's NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
In fact, the only thing about CLOVERFIELD that bugs me is the climax. Like I wrote earlier, you felt the giant's presence either up-close or far away. But for it to come out of no where and sneak up on the heroes? It's almost as if Abrams/Reeves wanted to appease the nerds who want finally a full close-up shot of the star, and they caved in. It's just so silly.
While one may wonder how a camera could have survived all of this, its perhaps a compliment that I never dramatically questioned why afterwards they pick the camera back up.
With a reported $30 million budget, with more than 2/3rds going to the CGI, this CLOVERFIELD feels like many recent Hollywood productions that use the resources and media machine of the major studios, but with a creative indie cinema approach much like Doug Liman's THE BOURNE IDENTITY.
Indeed CLOVERFIELD is a harrowing dark movie without answers, and a brave choice of a logical conclusion for a genre that's more satisfying and successful than BLAIR WITCH and the recent THE MIST were.
Yet even the monster menace and its parasites that couldn't be stopped will probably be made humbled by the Paramount mountain with a sequel.