Cloverfield is yet another piece of media to fall prey to my arch-nemisis 'hype-fever' and it has hit it hard with a film that held so much promise, a fresh take on film making, a plot with more depth than the standered 'monster has hatred of concrete' plot that holds these things toghether and maybe just maybe a few half way good scares.
what we got was a camrae that goes from one point to anothere faster than a squirell on steriods, a plot that turned out to be no more than a loss bunch of 'in' jokesfor all the online fans that made it suck so very badly and a grand tottal of three moments that where not scary but which manged to carry this film above the general shittyniss it wallows in for most of the time.
so i will cover the main bad points of this film first, and because there are so many poor points i will create a list going from least to most film ruining.
5. the first twenty minutes (or there abouts)
I am not one of these people that thinks all films should be one long gun fight (the green mile is my joint best film ever) and even in a monster movie some time to get to know the people can really help a film along. but when you spend the first twenty minutes of a film getting intresting angles on peoples chins it helps me do two things 1 is to make me feel nothing for all but the camrea man and 2 to make me feel more happy leaving than i was during most of the film. so if that was the aim then mission fucking acomplised.
4. the monster (no spoilers here)
when i think about the great movie monsters i think of the King Kongs the Godzillas and to a lesser extent the Krakens. because of this i had very strong views of what make good movie monsters, so when we finelly get a clear view of it i could not help feeling a littil disappointed in it after all the only thing it really has going for it is the amazing power to shed gaint crabs and not die.
3.the lighting
the light and general tone of this film varys from 'tar black' to 'shit brown' with a liberal splashes of explosion and blood red which just hurts your eyes with the constant to-ing and frowing of the camrea it can get annoying to say the least.
i would like to meet who ever it was that thought that shining blinding light in to the face of the viewer was a good idea, some may argue "it increase emmersion in to the film" and that may be true. but a then on that token a crane can increase some ones emmersion in to a cesspit but does that make it any more fun? In fact i was more aware that i was watching a film at that point than at any other
2. the camrea work (excluding one or two moments)
hear is a littel class thati would have thought all directors and camrea men where tought in film school 'if the audience cant see what is going on because you are moving around to much then there is something wrong' and it seems to be a leasson that J.J.Abrams missed at school because there is about ten seconds total of the camera being still, and this would be including when...*puts hand over mouth*.....never mind lets just say it jerks around lots and you know what that would be okay if there had been a pause for just a few seconds more often or even if they lingered on points of intirest for longer then i wouldnt mind so much. in the film Hud, the one and only charcter that is not a 2d cut out and is also the camrea man says the now well knowen line "yeah so that people will know how this all went down" but i think anyone that did find the fottage would spend so long rubbing there eyes and holding there heads they wouldent beable to get anything out of the film.
1. the main charecters (excluding Hud)
i will keep this one short. all o the people in this film are unintresting, flat and and with so much attesion being brought on the idea of it being a small group of people moving through this attack( it is all that is on the back of the box) makes it all the more disapointing when we find out that they are all you standered "paint by numbers" steriotypes.
so to summerises this film can say only one thing in defence of it and that is that at least it isnt as bad as the Blair Witch Project.
Saturday, 14 June 2008
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