Cloverfield

My son and I ventured-out this afternoon to catch the new film from producer JJ Abrams entitled CLOVERFIELD.

It was disappointing.

The story follows a team of young and good-looking hip New Yorkers and their cliche’ attempt to escape New York City during a catastrophic monster attack.

There is no story.

We are supposedly viewing a hi-def videotape retrieved from a camera found in the rubble of the aftermath.

Kinda like the Blair Witch Project- With millions of more dollars to spend.

There is no story.

We are supposed to be “experiencing” something that has happened and, conveniently for us, been caught on tape by one the most annoying blabbermouth characters I’ve ever seen in a film. I couldn’t WAIT for this guy to die.

And you knew that was coming because the videotape was “found”. It’s funny to think back and wonder now how the video survived at all- Especially through the last few minutes. The video-camera (with an endless battery) is not only dropped, but literally get chewed up, spit out, and nuked.

Anyway-

There is no story.

But like all scary movies, the writer and director attempt to help us get attached to the characters and spend time with them so we might care a little when they all start to bite it.

For this story-less movie to have worked, it would have had to be believable. Unfortunately, I could believe the movie’s giant monster and CGI helicopters slightly more than its “real” characters. This is why the entirety of Cloverfield really doesn’t work. I was constantly aware that I was watching mediocre actors trying to deliver truly horrible dialogue that was supposed to be real and spontaneous. It may have been ad-libbed. Don’t know. It probably would be the way to go if the story had more challenging or scary sequences and credible actors.

I was excruciatingly bored every time there were no monsters or carnage.

So was my son Henry. He’s nine years old. He’s been into monsters and scary movies since before he could walk. Some of his favorites include Godzilla Raids Again, War of the Worlds, Gamera, Poltergeist, Army of Darkness, and the current Doctor Who TV series.

Cloverfield just doesn’t stand a chance at holding up to any of those.

Henry liked most of Cloverfield, and has already asked to get the DVD when it comes out so that he can fast-forward to the “monster vs army stuff”. And yea, that stuff was cool.

It’s just not scary enough for the Edwards boys.

The MPAA rates Cloverfield PG-13 due to “violence, terror and disturbing images.. “

OK. I’m fine with that.

What they fail to mention, though, is all the bullshit in the beginning of the movie where the uber-hip characters recite dialogue out of the average teen movie and gossip about who’s having sex with who. It doesn’t get all that graphic, but I could’ve skipped the thrown-in meant-for-laughs “oh my god, they had sex” shit.

“But who’s that guy she’s with?”

“Like OMG, dude- We should totally get out of here”

And all of this is supposed to make us LIKE the characters.