Sunday, January 20, 2008

My Rambling Review of Cloverfield

This movie sucked.... really. Have you ever been forced to watch some family video that some one who had not quite mastered how to move with a camera was in charge of shooting? Remember how the quick pans and the juggling of the camera kind of irritated you? Maybe it even made you feel a wee bit queasy.... Well the retards who shot Cloverfield thought hey let's do an entire movie like that. For all that is holy, why?! How is this getting any positive press at all? I was complaining about the shaky camera thing in the Bourne movies but this is way worse. Within the first 10 minutes I knew I had wasted my money. So why did I continue watching? Well I kept waiting for these characters, that were lame, to die and for whoever was viewing this archival film to take over and the good part to start. Then when I realized THIS was the movie I kept hoping it would end soon. It was the longest hour and a half ever.



So what is it about? This would be the part where I tell you all about the movie. So totally a Spoiler warning here.

I am glad you asked.... I have no freaking clue. No really, I don't have a clue. Here is what you see. Someone logs into an archive and starts playing a film from the Cloverfield file. It starts with a couple in a fancy apartment talking about going to Coney Island and then cuts to another couple playing with the camera while the girl tells the boy to film people saying goodbye to his brother at a going away party. The guy doesn't want to do it so he pawns it off on his brother's seemingly retarded friend. So we see a bunch of boring party scenes and the retarded friend hitting on some girl who wishes he would just drop dead... or at least that's what her eyes were saying. Then the brother shows up and it is the guy who was in the beginning... apparently this is his camera and they are taping over his dream day with the girl of his dreams that he slept with and then blew off. Don't you wish you could be the object of his desire? Real nice guy, right? Anyway the girl shows up with some other guy... obviously to piss him off and they argue and she leaves. Then there is an explosion and guess what it sounds like an explosion but every character says "was that an earthquake?" Apparently to be in New York you have to think explosions are earthquakes... apparently. They all run to the roof to see the earthquake, I guess.... when another explosion goes off and they all run back inside and down the stairs as huge pieces of shrapnel demolish nearby buildings. They stop calling it an earthquake. As a group they all run outside as a cloud of dust and whatever blows through and they take refuge in a convenience store. Then they get the bright idea to go outside. While outside the girl that was blowing off our stupid camera man is out there and looks scared and is talking about something eating people. So they decide to get out of Manhattan and they are crossing the Brooklyn bridge when something takes the bridge out and the brother who was supposed to be filming dies..... boo hoo. Then they run back across and the brother that is alive gets a call from the girl he slept with and ditched and she is whining about bleeding and being scared. So they go the other direction into the middle of Manhattan to save her. 4 people... the brother, the girlfriend of the dead brother, the girl who hates the camera guy and the camera guy. It does not get any better. Everyone else from the party is either dead or smarter then these 4. They finally show the monster and he is really badly computer generated and is completely lame looking. We of course know nothing about it but apparently he is shedding little biting things that look even stupider then it did. So the 4 brain surgeons go underground into the subway and decide to walk in the dark through the tunnels. Of course the bitey things are following them and when the 4 rocket scientists see rats running past them they stop to discuss it. I am sorry but if I am ever anywhere that rats are running en masse in a direction I am going to run that way too. I don't know a lot about rats but I do know that if they are all running past you like that you should probably run.... I mean come on! So anyway they get attacked and the evil eye chick gets bit. Which is bad... they somehow stumble into the army and the army freaks out about the bitten chick and they lead her to quarantine where I think she exploded or something. Anyway they continue to go for the chick who was calling about bleeding like 20 some odd years ago... The apartment she lives in is of course collapsed into another and is actually leaning against it. That does not deter them. They go up the building being leaned on and cross over onto the roof of the leaning building she lives in. She is still in the apartment and alive.. even though she has a random metal bar through her. I am not sure how the re-bar ended up in the middle of her floor for her to fall through but it was awfully convenient. They pull her off it and she is all wobbly but like a minute later she is fine. She can run like the wind somehow... I guess that's what happens when you impale yourself and bleed for hours.... So yeah they run back and somehow meet up with the army again. One person gets out by helicopter then the other 3 get on another one that gets totally slapped by the stupid cg monster like a cat swats a toy. All three live through the crash landing but the pilots don't. Then finally the camera guy dies and then a few minutes later so does the girl they rescued and the guy who slept with her. That's it, that is the end. We have no idea what happened to the monster or the person who got on the first helicopter. We don't know anything at all except that I just paid money to see a dumb poorly shot movie. I don't know where the monster came from or if the last attack actually killed it but hey at least those characters finally died.

The camera guy did say a few funny things but they were not worth seeing this movie for. Oh my goodness this movie was bad! So bad that I decided to walk into another movie without paying. I figured 6.75 for the movie and 8 bucks for popcorn and soda meant that I deserved another movie.... in fact I think everyone deserves more free movies. Anyway that movie was much better but that will be another review.

4 comments:

Edie Spencer said...

So, I saw Cloverfield, too. I have problems with the movies- but hey, I did the true New Yorker thing, which is to root for the monster.

Actually, the movie worked as a cold night entertainment, best seen with a few glasses of wine or beer. That way, you won't start picking apart the plot points and the stupid motivations of the characters!

Unknown said...

Yeah being a bit tipsy might have helped me to enjoy the movie but it might of actually caused me to ralph. That's the problem with drinking before seeing a movie.

The most offensive part of the movie is hearing a fifteen year old talk about how "intense" the film was afterward....

Anonymous said...

so,

i am guessing you didnt like this one that much. i am kind of getting the subtle hint you are throwing out there. i might rent it and pair it with copious amounts of beverages of the malted variety.

Unknown said...

Hey just call me Mr. Subtle...

Did I mention that this movie was terrible. I want to put this in perspective if you were to get this at Redbox for a dollar you would have paid too much.