What Do Transformers And Beowulf Have In Common?

Due to the release of Cloverfield, and all the anticipation surrounding it, I choose to wait a little bit until everyone had a chance to see it, before the words SPOILER WARNING scares you away from a blog that might ruin the movie. SPOILER WARNING! You have been warned. There are two (2) reasons to see Cloverfield; the obvious one is to actually see the movie, the other is to see the first trailer for Star Trek. The movie only began filming in the past couple months so I wondered exactly what they could show. No actors, an all effects trailer. With the sounds of successful NASA endeavours and Spock's chanting of the opening narration we are given quite a few scenes of Enterprise NCC-1701 being welded together and such. Actually quite moving but I wonder if any of it will be in the movie this christmas. JJ Abrams already said he's not breaking cannon (or at least that's how I've interpreted his interviews) but it is commonly accepted, even by the Creators of Trek, that the Enterprise was built in 2245, 20 years before Kirk got it. According to The Animated Series (not exactly canon), and some unofficial novels (not to mention some of Roddenberry's "making of" notes), the first captain of the Enterprise was Robert April. Then it passed to Christopher Pike for two (2) five-year missions before Kirk took the reins in 2265. So, if we're seeing the Enterprise being built then Kirk is 12 and everything is all wrong. There must be a hell of a lot of time travel and flashbacks going on. Either that or the trailer just looks awesome and has nothing to do with the movie. Sigh. We'll probably have to wait till after summer for real previews.

Last summer during the glorious eye/soul spectacle of Tranforsmers we were all witness to the first Cloverfield trailer. The one without the name. As much a gimmick to get your attention as it was to raise interest in the movie, the excitement was infectious. Was it Godzilla, Voltron, HP Lovecraft in New York? WTF? How could they make a preview so tantalizing without letting us know what's up. And the date was so far away, 1-18-08. For the next 6 months I played all the possibilities in my head. What kind of movie did I want this be? Once I/we learned it was something Godzilla-inspired but new the movie in my head began to solidify. I pictured all the moments I wanted if I were to make it. This is something that should be said about most previews these days is that they leave little to the imagination. They generally hit the major plot points and don't leave too much to the imagination. I blame this on the studios for not treating us as clever adults. Not Abrams. It was months before the he let anything out about the plot. And Beowulf was the next vehicle to drive Cloverfield into our brainpans. How about studios just show enough to get my interest but don't let me know where its going. If the previews for Jumper were just about him in the kitchen, I think they would be far more effective. I'm digressing. Sorry.

Friday I went to see Cloverfield and it was sold out. I can't remember the last time I saw a soldout movie; Titanic or ET or Star Trek II maybe? As nauseous as the movie made me (sitting way up front and drinking Mountain Dew) I loved almost every minute of it. The first thing that struck me as genius was the whole DOD video tape label, making it seem like you're watching a video briefing. Without the label the movie would just be trying to make you feel like you're there. It's a subtle difference, but important. At the end of the movie I fully expected there to be a segment showing the military in a small theater discussing the events and what really happened. There's always the possibility of a sequel, though.

As straight forward as the movie is, the plot isn't anything new, the use of the handheld camera and 9/11 imagery (as much as reviewers have complained about it), I thought it did the genre justice. Almost everything the characters did I wanted to see happen. Calling this a predictable movie doesn't give credit to what Abrahms made. I like the simple outline of these five (then four, then three) people trying to save Beth in Manhatten while "The Cloverfield Thing" stomped the living hell out of everything. These guys aren't my crowd, as I'm much older, but I began to sympathize with them in a crazy survival situation. As a person given some crazy survival training, my first instinct was to "cut and run." "Beth who? Sorry, wrong number," and haul ass across the Brooklyn Bridge. (This is like that moment in Silent Hill when Radha Mitchell is looking down the dark alley where her daughter ran. I yelled mentally, "that ain't your kid anyway, cut your loses and get the hell out." But no, Radha wandered down and became trapped in Silent Hill.) Okay, I probably would have been killed when the bridge fell, but that's something else. But, had I chosen to help Beth out like Rob did I would have gone to a gun store and loaded up. They saw the little dudes fall off the big dude and kill some of the troops, they need weapons. Look what happened to Marlena. Pop! To that point, WTF kind of infection makes you pop. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

This movie is what we call in video game terms, a rail shooter. There isn't any shooting on our part, but I wouldn't play this game 'cause all you could do is run. What I mean by "rails" is the movie is like a ride that follows a path you can see in front on you. This is, however, okay, because the predictable is thrown out the window since you've never seen a movie like this (and Blair Witch doesn't count). Eventually you are given a full view of the creature, but for the most part we only see bits of it in the dark, harking back to the days of Alien. When you do finally see it at the end of the movie it didn't really inspire as much horror in me. And why would it eat Hud. This thing was stomping tanks and buildings and lobbed the head of Miss Liberty. Why would it care about a human? Just curious. I think it was one of the smaller things that grow bigger as they eat people, even though there really isn't any evidence they "eat" people, just bite them. I refuse to believe the Big Creature ate Hud then sort of spit him out. At least it didn't eat the camera.

Being a military guy I loved the use of the Army. I'm even betting they're the Nation Guard. The M-16 doesn't sound as heavy as FX guys made it to be but the rest of the sounds of war were spot on. I began to become unsettled with the chatter of 50-cal in the distance. It's a sound you never forget. Nothing was more awesome than seeing the B-2 carpet-bombing the creature. I tended to feel better when Bob and pals hooked up with the military but it wasn't a military journalist filming events, it was Hud. So we had to get them away from the military often just to move things along. Forgivable, in that Rob had to find Beth and not hang out with the Army. And speaking of sound, Hud the Camera-man is hysterical. For a character that you don't really see I felt we got to know him more than Rob, Beth, Lily or Marlena. I never thought of a camera as a character until I watched MST3K, when Cambot is established. Not that it did much but Joel/Mike and the Bots would talk to Cambot during the episode, and he can even be seen in a mirror in the opening credits.

All in all I loved the ride. I've never seen my favorite genre, sci-fi, handled as surprisingly well as this movie. Monster movies of the past tend to be viewed as the paranoid fears of the political reality. Look up The Blob and The Day The Earth Stood Still. Cloverfield is no different, and Abrahms uses our new post-9/11 fears and imagery to tell this story. I have a feeling this movie is going to polarize viewers, it's either going to be loved or hated. The part most people are going to have trouble with is the same thing the new War Of The Worlds, lack of information. What the hell happened in Cloverfield. Don't expect an answer. War Of The Worlds came up with dumb answers when it should have kept it's mouth/script shut. Cloverfield keeps you guessing, looking for tidbits. Those tidbits are probably going to come from the internet and comics and novels. NOT THE MOVIE. You will see a vague answer during the final Coney Island scene with Beth, but I blinked and missed it. And I think the movie is better off without answers, paving the way for more Cloverfields, hopefully one with a steady-cam. Star Trek better not be handheld. If only we could convince Godzilla and The Cloverfield Thing to go stomp on the Middle East. See you next broadcast.