Cloverfield Breathes New Life Into a Dying Genre

J.J. Abrams’ latest silver-screen spectacle reminds me of those “moving chair” rides at theme parks. You sit in front of a giant movie screen and watch some five-minute action-packed film (sometimes in 3D) while your chair rocks back and forth to correspond with whatever is happening onscreen. I half expected to walk out of the theater to find guys handing out buttons that read, “I survived Cloverfield.” However, the biggest surprise of the evening wasn’t the big reveal of the hotly-debated monster, but the remarkable attention to character development and plotline that producer Abrams and his crew (comprised of director Matt Reeves and screenwriter Drew Goddard) bestow upon the often dumbed-down and over-expository genre of giant monster movies.

The film opens with some ingenious “Department of Defense” visuals, informing us that what we are about to see was obtained from wreckage in an area “formerly known as ‘Central Park’”. Pretty soon, we are introduced to Rob (Michael Stahl-David), a successful twentysomething who’s just landed a vice president position at some company in Japan (what he does exactly is never elaborated on). He begins filming his girlfriend, Beth (Odette Yustman), and they start planning a trip to Coney Island. Suddenly, the film cuts to a few weeks later, when one of Rob’s friends, Lily (Jessica Lucas), and his brother, Jason (Mike Vogel), decide to throw a surprise going-away party, and take the camcorder in order for people to give testimonials during the event. Pretty soon, the camera ends up in the hands of Hud (T.J. Miller), another of Rob’s friends, and then the trouble starts happening. One of the more innovative plot devices in Cloverfield is the fact that Hud is recording over the aforementioned Coney Island footage, so that throughout the film, the camera occasionally cuts back to that earlier recording, providing an ironic juxtaposition of visuals, as well as a bittersweet ending scene.

Goddard's script spends a generous amount of time building each of the characters’ back-stories, something that comes in handy once the mayhem begins. In fact, one of the best things about Cloverfield is that the filmmakers have crafted a sci-fi/horror film in which the audience is actively engaged with the characters and is genuinely concerned about what will happen to them. Hud provides much of the comic relief, but none of it feels forced and the script thankfully keeps the humor to a minimum when things start to get serious. For a PG-13 film, Cloverfield is surprisingly violent, with a scene involving a makeshift hospital in the middle of a clothing store being the most gruesome.

As for the monster, Abrams and Co. do a great job of only showing parts of the monster from time to time, very much in the tradition of Alien, only quite larger in scale. Early in the film, news reports show the creature unleashing smaller, spider-like parasites that play an important role in a particularly unnerving scene involving a pitch-black subway tunnel. Thankfully, Cloverfield doesn’t keep its secrets for long, and fans will be happy to know that you get to see more than enough of the main creature towards the end of the film, in broad daylight, no less!

Overall, Cloverfield breathes some much-needed life back into a genre that all but vanished from the American landscape after the dismal box office of 1998’s Godzilla. Hopefully, J.J. Abrams’ vision will pave the way for future filmmakers to revisit the giant monster movie and deliver their own original and innovative spin on it.