Cloverfield (2008)

Directed by: Matt Reeves
Starring: Michael Stahl-David

Cloverfield is what it is, nothing more and nothing less. And what is great about it is that it doesn't try to be anything more or less. With a few small exceptions, the movie never strays from its intent and given its style, this was probably the most important thing the filmmakers needed to focus on.

It is basically a monster movie. A huge, CGI monster attacks and destroys New York City and threatens the lives of everyone, including our main protagonists who's going away party is interupted by the attack. In the midst of the attack, rather than running away like everyone else, Rob (Stahl-David) needs to go find his friend Beth in Midtown... towards, rather than away from the monster. While his motives and actions are cliche, they don't emphasis them. Rob says something along the lines of, "this is not me being crazy... I'm going and that's all there is to it." And they go. So rather than having a cliche race to save his love, we have a conflict that works and creates the only necessary added dimension.

The biggest critism of this film is its way of being shot. That being that its all handheld. There are times when it makes you dizzy but I think that they suspense it creates trumps that problem. The fact that we see the monster for a few seconds, but then pan over because the camera operator needs to see where he's running consistently made me want to see more of the monster or more of the destruction. On top of that, we are satisfied at the end by the amount that we do see.

This film is what it is and for that reason, its very easy to enjoy. At the same time however, its not much more than a monster movie. There's no real depth to it and it does eventually have you longing for a conclusion, whatever it may be. Even at a short running time, we're ready for it to end when it does. Overall, its an exciting action movie but again... is nothing more.

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