'Cloverfield' Leaves Viewers With More Questions Than Answers

by Lindsay Byers
2.7.08

After you get over the motion sickness generated by the shaky shots of a small handheld camera, “Cloverfield” turns out to be a pretty good movie.

Before entering the theater, I had not done any research on the film, didn’t watch any of the viral videos or go to any of the character’s MySpaces, but afterward, the movie almost forced me to buy into the “YouTube generation” hype.

The documentary-style motion picture spends about the first 20 minutes in lower Manhattan at a surprise going-away party for Robert Hawkins, who has just been promoted to vice president of Slusho. He is, ironically, going off to Japan, home of the original city-smashing monster. The camera is in the hands of Rob’s quirky best friend, Hud.

During the party, Rob’s friend Beth shows up with a new boyfriend. This throws Rob into a frenzy, and after he has a heated private conversation with her, he tells her to leave.

As seen many times in the trailer, the party is eventually disrupted by what seems to be an earthquake… It is definitely not an earthquake.
After the party-goers go down to the street where people are in complete pandemonium, the obviously-too-small head of the Statue of Liberty comes bouncing down the street. It seems it may be impossible to make a good sci-fi monster movie without destroying a few well-known national monuments in the act. As all the bystanders whip out their cell phones to take pictures of it, the realism of this movie begins to set in.

Whilst the incredible special effects continue and more huge explosions occur, the police begin to herd the people across the Brooklyn Bridge to a supposedly safer place. Whenever thousands of people are herded onto a bridge in a monster movie, it’s in your best interest to bet the person next to you five bucks that the bridge will come tumbling down to the water below. In this movie, you would have walked away $5 richer. Although I knew the bridge was going to fall, I still let out a little gasp as the monster’s enormous tail smashed through the middle of it.
As the bridge crumbles, Rob receives a call from Beth in which she says that she is injured in her apartment building and unable to move. Rob instantly decides that he must go back into the middle of the city (where the monster is, mind you) to save Beth.

After that much of the movie is spent following Rob and his friends as they try to make their way to Beth’s apartment… not all of them are successful.
The creatures in the movie that I found even scarier than the main monster itself were the nasty dog-sized spider-scorpions it shed. At least you know where a 25-story monster is, but those sick spider-scorpions can just sneak up and attack! And trust me, you do not want to get bitten by one of those suckers.

The characters are all nicely played by their little-known actors, and Hud manages to slip some comic relief between the times of turmoil.

As expected with this style of film, the movie ends abruptly and your instant reaction will be to blurt out the first profanity that comes to mind. But if you give yourself some time to think about it, you may eventually become satisfied with the ending.

As I shuffled out of the theater with a string of mildly agitated college boys, I thought to myself, “Why the heck did they call this ‘Cloverfield’?!”

The movie left me with more questions than that, but after spending a few Rockstar-enhanced hours on the Internet, I was able to track down anything the movie didn’t spell out for me.

The film had no clear beginning, middle or end; it had no intense Hollywood plot. It just was. But it was definitely worth my $7 just to see what all the fuss was about, and I wouldn’t mind seeing it again.