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esteeb.art · @esteeb.art@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Cloverfield 3/10

<strong>Official Hater Club Movie Challenge #3: Found Footage<strong> If I remember correctly, when it came out, Cloverfield represented both the pinnacle and the end of the "Found Footage" movie boom of the 2000's. It was hyped like crazy and when people actually got to see it, I remember the reaction being pretty mixed. Reactions ranged from "pretty good" to "meh" to "this literally made me nauseous" (I remember hearing that last one a lot). I skipped it because I wasn't really a found footage guy at the time. Turns out, for the most part, I'm still not. My expectations were pretty low going into this, like I said I heard a lot of people this movie made them sick to watch, but I figured I'd give it a shot since I had a chance to watch an <a href="https://boxd.it/7SSZUp">honest to God found footage movie this time around</a> and I like Matt Reeves' more recent work. I'm gonna start off by saying that Reeves' eye here is pretty interesting and dynamic, or as much as it can be for the conventions of the mode we're in here. Which ends up being the whole problem with the movie from jump. The whole thing is so fucking contrived. The movie is framed as footage in the possession of the US Government after The Events, you would think that would mean the footage would stick to the stuff pertinent to said Events. But they, largely, are not. The first 20 minutes of this 90 minute film are, to be kind, a slog. Have you ever had to watch someone else's wedding video? No, of course you haven't, because most people understand that no one gives a shit about testimonials given by people you don't know about people who are not you at a party you were not invited to. This would be cruel and unusual if it were someone you knew, now try to imagine it's someone you literally just met 5 minutes ago and all you know about them is that they are kind of a shitty friend who pulls outside of their weight class, sex wise. Now imagine the cameraman for said video is TJ Miller and he's zooming in on every butt and cleavage in the room and making annoying creepy small talk with his annoying croaky voice the whole time. You see my problem with this? Not only does this not work within the framing device because, I assume, people who work in National Security are pretty busy and do not really need this context to understand The Events, but it does not really work narratively because, I cannot stress this enough, the more you spend time with these people the less you want to. It's, obviously, trying to present you with an emotional anchor. Give you a reason to care before the big beastie starts fucking shit up. But it's doing it in such a bland way and the people the movie are just shown to be so shallow and annoying that you are kinda hoping the monster kills everyone. On top of that, Reeves' eye as a director actually compounds the problem. Why would TJ Miller, clearly presented as a goober and koozhound, take the time to document a moment of human drama between rubbernecking? It makes sense in a film language kind of way, but that's not how this is supposed to work right? It's supposed to create the illusion that a goober koozhound just so happened to get the whole thing on camera, a shitty camera 2008 camera that somehow has better fidelity than my 2025 iPhone btw, when The Events happened. The only thing that really sells that Miller is the one operating the camera is that even when the monster madness is in full swing, the butt and boob shots DO NOT STOP. Then there's the script of this movie. Nobody does anything that makes any sense. Which again, would almost be fine, if it weren't for the framing device. Having a man brave the hell of a giant monster attack to save the woman he is currently banging would be...I dunno...fine as a story. But the movie doesn't really give us a good enough reason that anyone in their right mind, in particular TJ Fucking Miller, would actually follow him into said hell. The main guy just keeps saying, "I have to go! I have to go get her!" with moistened puppydog eyes and everyone else in the group is like, "Dude no!" but they follow him further and further anyway until they, and the movie, just goes "Fuck it, we've come this far," I guess and expects that to be enough. There's a thing I've identified with video games as they've gotten more and more realistic graphics wise that, unless the animation or mocap tech you are using is VERY good, the more photorealistic the subject the more weird it feels when the characters behave like video game characters. You know with the stiff movements and the frozen faces and the stilted dialogue. The same goes, I think, for movies. The more you try to convince people of the realism of a situation the more it feels off when it's not. Wooden acting, shitty plotting, underwhelming character motivations, less than stellar CGI, narrative contrivance is all stuff you can get away with in a normal movie. But they REALLY stand out when you are trying to sell that this is real life. The stuff that worked was the parts when there was actual danger, the monster stuff. With the explosions and smashing of buildings and stuff. It was like we were following around a group of extras in a much cooler movie. Don't get me wrong, I am an adult, <a href="https://boxd.it/7zDqVr">I am not a "shut up and show me the monster" type of film watcher by any means</a>. I know how the dance works. It's just that the stuff around the monster movie blows and if I had to sit through this in a government briefing and was actually paid to do it I would still be pissed. The best I can say about this movie is that it serves as signpost for how not to do this sort of thing. The only silver lining was that <i>10 Cloverfield Lane<i> was pretty cool.

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Published 2025-02-13 00:00 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere