Broken Frontier

This weekend Cloverfield set a January box-office record opening with an impressive $41 million opening this weekend. Especially a film staring a group unknowns. The Matt Reeves directed film is bound to draw in fans from all over the science fiction and monster movie genre. The film is also produced by J.J. Abrams, who is partly responsible for the hit show Lost, which is also bound to draw in a few fans.

The gist of the story is a giant monster is attacking New York. Nothing too original right? What’s different is this is told through the eyes of a small group of 20-something’s as they try to escape the city, all while managing to film the whole incident on a handheld camera. The film opens with some army jargon making it appear that the footage we’re about to watch was obtained the military after the incident.

The film has been getting mixed reviews so far. One New York Times reviewer stated, "For a brief, hopeful moment, I thought the filmmakers might be making a point about how the contemporary compulsion to record the world has dulled us to actual lived experience, including the suffering of others — you know, something about the simulacrum syndrome in the post-Godzilla age at the intersection of the camera eye with the narcissistic ‘I.’" A reviewer for Entertainment Weekly gave it a B+ and said, "Cloverfield kills its darlings with élan, thanks to the brilliant, post–Blair Witch Project decision to tell the story through amateur footage shot by one of the refugees — a big-picture disaster seen through the viewfinder of little, self-absorbed people."

Will this movie redefine monster movies? No. One almost gets the feeling that Reeves and Abram were channel surfing and spotted 98’s Godzilla on TBS and looked at each other and said, "How could we make this better." The film is chock full of groan moments. And you really have to look past the ridiculousness of the fact that the character filming it insists on documenting everything. As much as you want to see what’s going on, at times you’re tempting to scream, "Drop that effing camera and run fool!" But if you promise yourself to not take the film as seriously as the film-makers you’ll find yourself having a good deal of fun.

The film is bound to draw many Blair Witch Project comparisons from the handheld camera footage and the plot has themes material as well. However while the scary parts of Blair Witch were the parts where stuff was happening off camera, Cloverfield has no trouble divulging all of its secrets to the watcher. While they leave the origins of the monster vague, because that’s how it would occur where this real, they have no trouble giving you that perfect Hollywood shot of the monster at the end.

The shaking camera techniques are bound to induce nausea in the more weak stomached viewers. My wife gets motion sickness in the most bizarre instances and at one point during the film I thought for sure we were going to have to walk out.

The premise of the film isn’t the most original thing in movies today, and the manner in which it was filmed has been done before as well. If you’re looking for intellectual social commentary you’re better off renting The Host. However, if you’re looking for a good time at the theater that isn’t overly complicated, then Cloverfield might be a good pick for you.