"Cloverfield"

I basically knew what I was getting into when I watched this movie. Hand held camera, home video and all. The woman who works at the video store wouldn't recommend it, saying that all the herky-jerky movements made her nauseous. I guess that's a valid reason to dislike it. But there are many others to choose from.

First off, the premise is that everyone in the movie is simply a person who happens to be there when the camera just happens to be rolling. Which would be all fine and good if it wasn't so obvious that these were actors ACTING, which is to say that they aren't believable in the situation the characters would find themselves in...not that there any real characters. The writer obviously tries to single out a couple of the hapless folks, but you're doing a lot better than me if you cared at all for any of them. There's a good chance that the home video concept is at blame here, with it's inherent limitations. No matter. It'a all the same in the end.

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I thought the visual imagery invoking 9/11 in this film was in very poor taste. You will not convince me that the producer/writer/director didn't know exactly what they were doing when they shot those scenes. They seemed to be a cheap attempt to conjure up some bad memories of horror to supplement the lack of horrific images they could come up with themselves.

The video store lady was justified, as well, in her dislike of the "cinematography". Not so much that you need motion sickness pills to see it through to the end...but it is EXTREMELY gimmicky. It gets tiresome very quickly and the producer does nothing interesting with the concept like, say, Mike Figgis could have done. Though I doubt Figgis would want anything to do with this movie that has no real plot to think of and goes absolutely nowhere.

Finally, I want to re-iterate my disgust at the 9/11 connections these bozos try to make...I would say "apparently try to make", but it should be obvious to anyone...take a look at the DVD cover art and tell me how you think that would have gone over in the later months of 2001.

...or maybe I'm just angry because even though sat through the whole mess and paid what I thought was very close attention, I still don't have a clue what the word "Cloverfield" means...

Naw...the movie sucked. That's all it is.

1 out of 4 Stars

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