CLOVERFIELD works!!!

by: bamf 7 months, 1 week, 1 day, 20 hours, 22 minutes ago

 

Bamf here rematerializing from the void..

Absurd! Preposterous! Complete and utter nonsense I say! It is beyond creditability that any woman would allow herself to be recorded via video at 6:45 in the morning still in bed with a smile on her face! Besides that, Cloverfield is pretty much ten gallons of kick ass. Did I buy into the hype machine? Was I a victim of the vast Slusho marketing conspiracy? No, I’ve successfully stayed in the dark on this one and that’s a good place to go next.

When I was closing my eyes and covering my ears every time a Cloverfield spot came up on T.V. I was constantly reminded of another event film, Independence Day. Back then we called it ID4, now I call it something Roland Emmerich did. I’m not embarrassed to say, but rather soft to reveal that I talked up ID4 like it was the greatest film ever made. I was fully taken by the promotional juggernaut that that movie was, right down to watching the mock news reports running on Fox (too easy). After watching my VHS home version I had a decidedly different opinion on that second rate effects blow hard which was summed up nicely when two years later David Duchovany relieved his bladder on the poster in the X-files film.

There are films that will live forever in your head solely on the theater experience that you have. I’m not calling Matt Reves’ Cloverfield an ID4, because it is damn good. It’s not that I wouldn’t want it in my home theater library either; I just wouldn’t want to see it in anything less than a true theater setting.

Cloverfield is a genuine ride. I mean that in the truest sense of the word “ride”, and not in the clichéd sense that I’m sure my arch nemesis Peter Travers of Rolling Stones will call it. I literally mean adrenalin, ball punching ride. I really felt like I was on a theme park rollercoaster, like “Superman The Escape” at Six Flags, or some nightmarish version of “It’s a Small World” at Disneyland where the animatronic puppets in Denmark spring from their collective places and start pulling children down under the water. There should be a disclaimer ran at the beginning warning expectant mothers and people with heart conditions to go see The Water Horse instead. This film doesn’t put you on the edge of your seat, it shoots you to the back out of fear and self preservation instincts.

The effects work from creature to destruction is so natural that there never is a -take me out of the story- moment. It all fits as well as a man in a suit does in the scaled down versions of Tokyo in the Toho produced Godzilla films. The actors do a great job in giving a voice to the narrative, unfortunately for them little might be remembered about what they actually did in the film for future rolls. That is not a slight on them, just the film as a whole is so big and done so well, that while they do ground you in the film, they do sort of get lost.

That’s not to say I didn’t get into their story though. I thought the quiet seconds of the “lost” tape between Rob and Beth gave real levity to the story, and certainly something that I wanted to be kept safe in the madness. It’s just that a lot of those quiet moments get lost when you are recovering from a pulse pounding action –oh my fucking god what is that- sequence. So you guys are still winners to me.

Cloverfield may very well sink under it’s own hype.  Yet it is a theater experience that must be had by all.  Again, I think it’s the hype balloon that might push people away and maybe even garner more negative reactions then it deserves much like what Juno is starting to go through today. There is a natural backlash that will be experienced once something blows up like this will, and again, the hype right now can be believed. Cloverfield delivers, and is worth your money today.

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