Bob PeryeaCloverfield fixes everything Godzilla ruined
April 9th 2008 02:52
Unsurprisingly, considering their love for all things monster, Cloverfield is topping the Japanese box office. And in my fine tradition of using seemingly irrelevant news as an excuse to talk about a movie, I loved Cloverfield. I talked to a lot of people that really didn’t enjoy it. I heard things like: ‘You never see the monster’, ‘The camera work sucks’, ‘They don’t explain where the monster is from’, or ‘There isn’t enough fighting the monster’. But after seeing it myself, I dismissed all these points as beside the point. The movie isn’t really about the monster, it’s about the people, and people reacting in situations of outrageous tragedy. In fact the action parts were the worst parts of the movie.
Most of that movie could have been based in a major, devastating battle, say the Battle of Britain or Stalingrad. The monster, while admittedly cool, was a tool to examine how people deal with situations of immense pain and desolation. Remove the monster and add carpet bombing or a tidal wave, then weird parasite bug things and add soldiers or gangs and the same movie takes place. Cloverfield isn’t about action packed battles ala Godzilla, it’s about using the monster to explore the human situation. When the group of survivors was hiding in the train station and Rob has to tell his Mum that his brother is a prime point that this wasn’t solely about a rampaging beast, but about the human reaction to such a tragedy.
Now I’m not one of these people that worships the ground that JJ Abrams walks on, I got sick of Lost after the first season and I think I saw about two episodes of Alias, but I’m ready to admit that Cloverfield kicked arse. Along with Peter Jackson’s King Kong it brought a level of respect back to the Monster movie that Godzilla single handedly destroyed (although I am a bit of a sucker for that movie too, it’s a guilty pleasure). In fact thinking about it, a lot of movies I like technically are Monster movies, Predator, Aliens, even something like The Hulk…although I’m probably stretching the definition a bit.
Anyway, not a big post, I haven’t seen a new movie to ramble about for ages so I’ll probably just be sprouting bollocks like this for a while to come…
Most of that movie could have been based in a major, devastating battle, say the Battle of Britain or Stalingrad. The monster, while admittedly cool, was a tool to examine how people deal with situations of immense pain and desolation. Remove the monster and add carpet bombing or a tidal wave, then weird parasite bug things and add soldiers or gangs and the same movie takes place. Cloverfield isn’t about action packed battles ala Godzilla, it’s about using the monster to explore the human situation. When the group of survivors was hiding in the train station and Rob has to tell his Mum that his brother is a prime point that this wasn’t solely about a rampaging beast, but about the human reaction to such a tragedy.
Am I the only one who can't find any good pictures of this movie?
Now I’m not one of these people that worships the ground that JJ Abrams walks on, I got sick of Lost after the first season and I think I saw about two episodes of Alias, but I’m ready to admit that Cloverfield kicked arse. Along with Peter Jackson’s King Kong it brought a level of respect back to the Monster movie that Godzilla single handedly destroyed (although I am a bit of a sucker for that movie too, it’s a guilty pleasure). In fact thinking about it, a lot of movies I like technically are Monster movies, Predator, Aliens, even something like The Hulk…although I’m probably stretching the definition a bit.
Anyway, not a big post, I haven’t seen a new movie to ramble about for ages so I’ll probably just be sprouting bollocks like this for a while to come…
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Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by Geoff Egan
Noise Fanatic
Comment by S.L.
The Political Brief
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
I went into Cloverfield reluctantly and came out smiling, you can read my review HERE if your interested. Im just not a fan of paraphrasing what i have already written elsewhere, hope you don't mind.
Comment by Geoff Egan
Noise Fanatic
Your review pretty much sums up my opinions on it.