CloverShite!

I WAS WARNED before going to see this movie, but I still went anyway. It’s in my nature to make up my own mind about these things, and so off I trotted to the cinema to see the latest moster flick from producer J.J. Abrahms, simply called “Cloverfield”… and what a pile of shite it was.

The concept itself is not too shabby – it’s your basic monster attacking New York (why is it always New York?) as told by a group of average joes and janes who are just trying to survive. The kick is that it’s all done using a shaky-cam scenario (in other words, shot like a documentary… on the run… constantly fucking with your vision as a result), as seen by one of the central characters through a hand held camcorder.

The implementation of the movie isn’t that bad I suppose. CGI effects were OK, NYC getting it’s arse kicked by a large reptillian thingy was pretty cool – although it’s all been done before. The use of non-famous actors helped the audience to invest in the characters rather than having the distraction of a Tom Cruise-a-like approach but overall I have to say the movie was, well, shite.

Such an amount of hype surrounds this movie that I suppose it was always going to be an uphill battle to live up to it, however what really pisses me off about the film is that when I got to the end of it (and it’s a very short film folks) I was left feeling a combination of disappointed and unfilfilled.

The disappointment stems from the fact that nothing is explained in the movie. The origins of the monster, the reason for it’s attack, the response of the military… hell even the outcome is not explained. The whole thing just happens and then stops, and everyone in the cinema kind of shrugged for a bit, mumbled about it being a bit pointless and then left in an orderly fashion. 

The unfulfilled feeling is one of expectation, or rather the letdown of not meeting an expectation. Yes the marketing may be very viral and very clever. And yes, if you’re sad enough to sit through the 12 minutes of credits at the end you might hear the ‘help us’ plea in an audio track. And sure, the whole false-starts and misdirection tactic on the internet leading to all the hype must have been a hell of an effort on the part of the filmmakers… but ultimately what was the fucking point? The film doesn’t deliver. At all. It just follows a few partygoers as they get picked off one by one trying to escape NYC and then ends. Period. Don’t waste your time or money on this one folks.

As I said… CloverShite!