A group of friends ventures deep into the streets of New York on a rescue mission during a rampaging monster attack.
When word of a new monster movie began circulating back in early 2008, people got excited. Very excited. When the teaser trailer landed, excitement went through the roof. But then the movie was released, and audiences were divided. On the one hand, we had a new monster movie, but on the other hand, you could hardly see anything that transpired onscreen. Director Matt Reeves (“The Batman”) decided to forego conventional filmmaking and opted instead for “The Blair Witch Project” approach, utilizing shaky handheld cams and frenetic cinematography. While it worked to great effect in “The Blair Witch Project,” it was the ultimate distraction here. While I love monster films and disaster flicks, combining the two genres should have resulted in a modern masterpiece, but instead, we’re left with a movie that should have been big on spectacle, if only you could see what was happening.
Rob (Michael Stahl-David) lives in New York City; he is getting ready to move to Japan when his friends decide to throw him a going-away party one night. With the festivities in full swing, they hear a series of explosions which causes a power outage, forcing the friends out onto the streets where they see the severed head of the Statue of Liberty land in front of them. They can barely make out a large creature walking in amongst the buildings and flames, and for the rest of the night, the friends must band together and try to survive as the creature causes havoc throughout the entire city, destroying anything, and anyone, who gets in its way.
For a monster movie, the premise is more than satisfactory; it is, after all, dealing with intergalactic aliens, and our human counterparts have to survive the night, but as I mentioned earlier, the film is shot using a non-stop barrage of handheld and shaky camera angles that never cease. Things get progressively worse when the action swells, and all we can see are the feet of our protagonists and the ground they are running on, instead of the monster or the havoc it is causing.
Matt Reeves would go on to direct “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,” “War for the Planet of the Apes,” and “The Batman,” and thankfully, he abandoned his shakycam approach for these movies, and they thrived because of it. While “10 Cloverfield Lane,” a somewhat indirect sequel, came out in 2016, audiences were disappointed that it was more of a human story instead of concentrating on the aliens. While the story itself took place in Louisiana, far from New York City’s events, both films occurred simultaneously on the same night. Secrecy surrounded both movies, and a third film in the franchise, “The Cloverfield Paradox,” was released in 2018 to less-than-stellar reviews, signaling the end of the franchise. But this being Hollywood, I’m sure it will be rebooted in no time.
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