Sunday, 03 February 2008
The best disaster film I have ever seen. Everyone remembers September 11th 2001. Where you were, what you saw, what you felt. The confusion. The unstoppable, uncomprehending terror. How many planes? Where were they? What the hell was going on? We watched mute on television, stunned into a number silence as the news endlessly repeated the same footage over and over again. The two towers collapsing like a house of cards, in on themselves, endlessly repeating. And at the heart of it, all we really knew was that this had happened. The hows, the whys, all the questions were at best, speculation, and great unknowns at the time.
I remember staring out of my London Government office building where I then worked, and scanning the sky every minute for planes. Were they at the right height? Should they be there? At every second, I wondered when - not if, but when - I would hear the low rumbling scream of angry jet engines at full throttle.
Cloverfield exists in that kind of world.It's a film that couldn't have happened before that date : and the only film I've seen that ever really captures the madness, the spirit of that day. It takes the old-fashioned classic Godzilla Vs. Japan disaster movie, and makes it suddenly, radically and utterly contemporary. In those films, do you remember the people, running confused in the streets, not really knowing what's going on? Cloverfield is a film about those people. Sure, somewhere, in some other film, there's broadcast fake news footage, there's generals calling airstrikes, there's Samuel L Jackson as the president screaming Enough Is Enough! I want That Motherfucking Monster Off My Motherfucking City!. But not in this movie. This movie is all about how it feels. In that way, its most definitely not the Big Picture, but a tiny fragment of a much bigger story.
In the hands of Bruckheimer, this film would be all about fighter pilots and panning shots of the Pentagon headquarters. In the hands of JJ Abrams and director Matt Reeve, Cloverfield is very possibly the best diasaster film ever made : it destroys all your preconcieved notions of what a film should and shouldn't do, and shows you only what cinema can do. In fact, its the diametric opposite in every way from the glut of modern movies : Cloverfield teases you with glimpses and fragments of the grand reveal, slowly building and escalating the tension to the point of an almost unbearable, adrenalin filled rush. Unlike many films, the characters are real : honest, scared, joking, human. Adrenalised, brainless simpletons they are not. They respond in the way you would. Getting out of breath, improvising, and being shit scared.
Cloverfield is by no means perfect. absolutely not. The Shaky-Cam footage is intensely irritating, and a clear overstatement of the faux-cinema verite. Simply put, the ever present camera shake - even when completely unnecessary - is simply fucking irritating and overdone. Anyone with half a brain would be a better, more competent cameraman than this during the non-action scenes. Never, for example, is the camera simply placed on a table and allowed to film a dialogue scene. The cameraman is always zooming in and out and shaking and moving and walking - and thinking with his dick.
And the product placement is obtrusive, completely unnecessary, and insulting. Admittedly its not quite as bad as Fantastic-Fours-face-off-in-front-of-a-billboard, I Robot, or Terminator 3, but it still cheapens the movie.
Aside from this, even at a brief 74 minutes, its still about 20 minutes too long. The opening is overlong (to the point of banality), and the final few minutes contain are are-you-fucking-kidding false ending that stretches credibility beyond belief. The grand reveal of the movie also feels like a contractual obligation. The movie doesn't need it, no matter how dramatically satisfying it may be - the story and format doesn't require it and seems somewhat improbable in the context of the film. But ultimately, that's nitpicking.
Cloverfield is a breathless, fabulous, non stop adrenaline hit that rarely puts a foot wrong throughout its whole length : there's no cutaways, no panning shots, no Invincible Matt Damon Who Will Survive Against All Odds. Simply put, its a great monster movie that thoroughly redefines the genre in the way that happens maybe once every couple of decades. This film shows up the rest of the idiotic, vapid, and brainless cookie-cutter CGI genre for the utter crud it is. It may very well be the best disaster/monster movie of all time, and I regard it as an absolutely essential piece of viewing for anyone with half an interest in the moving as an art form. It doesn't get much better than this.Only registered users can write comments.
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