Have a lot more money to spend on your movie poster than the actual movie itself? Think most people have blocked the Blair Witch Debacle from their minds? Can’t find a scab to write a script? Well, if all of the above are true, it sounds like you are destined to make Cloverfield 2 (I have actually heard people talking about a 2nd stab at this ill conceived movie).
I have to admit, I was very excited to see Cloverfield. I don’t really get into monster movies, but I heard people throwing around the words “horror” and “scary”, so I thought I would give it a shot. The commercials were interesting but had traces of Blair Witch all over them with the jerky camera and no discernable plot.
The beginning is very Blair Witch with a militaristic/CIA style screen stating the camera was recovered from the area formerly known as Central Park. At this point, I have high hopes. I know I am in for an hour and a half of jerky camera action, but I want to see wide spread terror.
In stead, some no talent hack takes the camera and starts fawning over some girl that looks like a mix between a movie zombie and Joan Jett. We are at a going away party for a thirtysomething fast tracker who is off to, get this, Japan! High fives all around the control room for the homage to Godzilla! Things rapidly deteriorate as we burn time in a desperate attempt to stretch things out to 85 minutes (how many of that is credits?). The camera man learns that our hero, who has dreams of sake dancing in his head, has recently, get this, had sex with one of his close friends. Now giddy, the cameraman gleefully spreads this sewing circle gossip around the party until, finally, the earth shakes and the power flickers. Now its on!
There could have been literally 100’s of cool things that would have happened at this point. What does happen is the monster makes its way into frame on the street outside and casually tosses the head of the Statue of Liberty into the street. Realism seems to take a backseat at this point because I did not hear one person mention that head. You know in a real amateur video, someone would state the obvious and start pining on about how that was the head of the Statue of Liberty and “Oh, that must be heavy”, etc…
Well, because the girl our Japan bound hero recently had sex with decided to leave the party early, he gathers up a rag-tag group to run upstream against the massive evacuation of Manhattan and head into the maelstrom. Blah, Blah, Blah. Find girl impaled on something, carry girl out. Expendable cameraman eaten. Helicopter ride to safety. Some kind of flash (a comet or spaceship or something) to insure a sequel. End of horror tape, cut back to pre-monster dated Coney Island tape, role credits.
Lame, but at least I didn’t pay to see it. I have to admit the action was great and pretty realistic on a tight budget due to the handheld cinematic style. Unfortunately, the story was as lame as the Blair Suck Project and the hype surrounding the movie was almost as great. If you have seen the movie, you will admit my cobbled together review was more thought out than the script.
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