Cloverfield

Cloverfield is a monster movie for the twenty-first century. There's the recreation of 9-11 iconography-the collapsing buildings, the crowds running from plums of smoke, I wonder what it must have felt like to watch this thing in NYC- and well as the wholesale embrace of digital technology. Not only is the entire film shot from the perspective of the digital camcorder of a New Yorker fleeing a monster attack, but the filmmakers smartly acknowledge the degree to which documenting our every move has become an unthinking habit. When the head of the Statue of Liberty comes bouncing down Spring Street, people are taking pictures of it with their cell phones before it even stops spinning. This awareness of the place of digital technology in our culture gives the film contemporary relevance. While past generations experienced historic events through print, or. more recently, television images, modern history is largely seen through the grainy lenses of digital camera and viewed on the internet. Recognizing the compulsive need to record our surroundings on film, and also the growing roll of amateur footage in shaping our relationship to catastrophe also goes a long way towards making the film's central conceit, that someone would keep their camera running during a giant monster attack, seem plausible. It also neutralizes the accusations of crass exploitation made by those who are uncomfortable with the 9-11 imagery: since 9-11 is the defining media event of this generation, any cinematic portrayal of mass terror will inevitably reference it.

Cloverfield can also lay claim to the mantle of the first 21st century monster movie due to its savvy use of the internet. Yes, there is of course the inevitable, and tiring, online hype and "viral marketing" fuckfest, but more interesting is the way that internet has been used as a secondary platform for the continuation of the film itself. All of the inevitably disappointing and awkward exposition that most films of this ilk are obligated to grind to a halt in order to deliver, has here been completly excised and placed on-line. If you really want to know why a giant monster is trashing New York City, there are plenty of websites to consult for the answer. Meanwhile, the film itself can dispense with the clunky scene where some government scientist stops the action all together for ten minutes to let the audience know what is going on. Not only does this model allow for tasty viral marketing opportunties, it also ends up streamlining the film for maximum efficiency of awesomeness.

And yes, friends, Cloverfield is pretty awesome. The verite style creates a sense of identification with the protagonists that most monster movies fail to achieve. Usually, when a giant creature destroys a city, there are tons of crane and helicopter shots that make the viewer identify more with the monster than with the tiny, scurrying humans running beneath its feet. That approach can look good, but it isn't that scary. Conversely, keeping the camera in the hands of one of those scurrying humans, looking up to get a glimpse of the massive, terrifying creature twenty stories above, can't help but leave the viewer feeling vicarious vulnerability and fear. The initial scenes of the creature attacking are sheer terror, as is a later scene in a darkened subway tunnel that ranks in my personal pantheon of unnerving film sequences. The characters are thinly sketched, but that doesn't really matter in the context: the real protagonist isn't on screen: it's the viewer. The character holding the camera, yuppie chucklehead "Hud," is only there to provide some humorous commentary. He's essentially Duke Nuke'em, but instead of spouting ripped off Bruce Campbell catchphrases, he's spitting some surprisingly funny, realistic comic relief. Like a first-person video game, the viewer fills the void at the center of the screen with their own persona. This approach worked to an extent in Blair Witch Project, but is more fruitfully applied here. Since there is an actual budget that allows for some pretty kick ass special effects, there's more to look at than three stammering improv class drop-outs walking in circles for an hour before something interesting happens.

For all of the visceral thrills on display, though, I was left, as I usually am while watching an apocalyptic horror movie, wanting to spend more time with the harried, gun-toting military grunts than with the dazed, largely useless civilians. Rather than leaving me unsatisfied, though, it really just left me hankering for more. Let's get some sequels in the pipe, pronto!

Score: 8.4