Our thanks go out to Kaiju Shakedown honcho and all around swell guy Grady Hendrix for passing along his take on hotly anticipated giant monster rampage film Cloverfield. He keeps it quick and spoiler free and you'll find his thoughts below the break.
Lower your expectations greatly and you won't be too disappointed in J.J. Abrams' production CLOVERFIELD. Technically compelling it manages to wring at least two goosebump moments out of sheer filmmaking skill alone, which is a good thing because the story, acting, actors, plot and pretty much everything else couldn't wring goosebumps out of a lumpy goose. With a set-up that feels cribbed from an unproduced FELICITY script (on the night before he goes to Tokyo for his job, good-looking Rob is having love life troubles with his "beautiful and charming" girlfriend Beth) and actors who make the most obvious and easiest choices at every opportunity (their reactions to the destruction of Manhattan remain within the bounds of propriety and we never see anyone really lose their shit or produce anything resembling a raw emotion no matter how hard they grunt and strain) this movie's characters are a necessary evil. A few funny moments creep through, courtesy of dopey cameraman, Hud, but otherwise their storyline serves as a delaying tactic so the filmmakers don't have to reveal their monster too early. Once they reveal the creature (which looks likes what you'd get if Pumpkinhead had too much to drink one night and humped a Predator) they've played all their cards and there's not much left for them to do since they can never generate a threat so intense that Hud might actually put his camera down and run like hell. I went into this expecting to be thrilled, so imagine my surprise to find myself thinking, "That was it?" as the end credits rolled.
On the plus side, it's only 90 minutes long and moves so fast that you only occasionally notice how thin the story actually is, and it only cost $30 million to make so it's not like it's an offensive waste of money or anything. And, like I said, lower your expectations and you'll still find a handful of moments that really give you chills. And what with inflation and with gas prices the way they are, then $30 million for three or four chills sounds about right.
Review by Grady Hendrix
how appropriately fitting that the masthead above the review for me was the original Gojira.
Has anyone else seen the ancillary ad campaigns Abrams is doing for the film? The Slusho web site is a thing to behold, as if the creators of Kappa Mikey were the PR squad. I think it's cute that JJ is tipping his hat to Ishiro Honda . . . could find a better way.
There is a tip of the hat to Godzilla for anyone who sits through the end credits. About halfway through they bring up a theme that sounds like an Akira Ifukube theme, but my untrained ear couldn't tell for sure.
... I can't help it, Todd - call me a hopeless fangrrl/nerdette, but I WANT to see this movie! And the contrast of chibi "Slusho" critters to our uber-bada** "Creature" is quite amusing, making the eventual connevtion of them almost surreal (IMO). Crossing my lil' fingers, I'll be in line with all the other geeks come tomorrow evening..! ;) ...