Cloverfield

Back in July, when Transformers came out, there was this really mysterious trailer in front of it. It had these kids at a party, and it was shot on handheld camera, kinda like The Blair Witch Project. Then there was all this noise and running around and OMG WHATS GOING ON THATS THE STATUE OF LIBERTYS HED IN THE STREETZ, and it was all very enigmatic. There was no title attached, just the date 01-18-08. There was bupkis about it on the internet, other than that it was a JJ Abrams Joint (Alias, Lost, MI3). People talked and talked about what it was. Was it Voltron? Was it H.P. Lovecraft, maybe Cthulhu (my personal hope, but no)? As time went on, the title of the movie was revealed as Cloverfield. The marketing for this film will have gone down as one of the great viral marketing campaigns, like The Blair Witch Project, or Snakes on a Plane. But while Cloverfield has borrowed Blair Witch's lo-fi aesthetic, it borrows just as much fizzle from the latter movie, in not quite living up to the hype it promised in early trailers.
The plot is Bourne Ultimatum-simple: some kids in NY are throwing a going-away party for Rob (Michael Stahl-David), and it's being filmed by Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel), and later Rob's friend Hud (T.J. Miller, who carries most of the film on his shoulders), who is crushing on Marlena (Lizzy Caplan, who REALLY NEEDS TO RETURN ZOOEY DESCHANEL'S DNA RIGHT NOW). Rob's "best friend" Beth (a very good Odette Yustman) comes to the party with man-friend in tow, drama ensues, and then the power goes out. When it returns, reports on the TV abound of a capsized oil tanker in the harbor......and then the Statue of Liberty's head rolls down the street, and it's all south from there.
The entire film is shot on handheld camera, which works very well for it. I liked the street level feel and how it worked in the giant monster genre. I liked the unavoidable allusions to 9/11, and I felt that they added weight to the film. Unfortunately, the story is so paper-weight that it wouldn't hold up to repeated viewings. There is a lot of fat in the form of a too-long intro before the action happens, which isn't good for a 75-minute movie. Gojira (the name of the movie is Gojira, not Godzilla....I don't want to hear about American edits with an added Raymond Burr........) was a great film because it tied fears about nuclear technology and the psychic residue leftover from WWII together, and made what would have been a mere popcorn film into something else. Cloverfield is pretty much popcorn, and not much else. There is good stuff. The monster, and its spawn. One character has a death that can only be described as............colorful. The ruined city. The acting is pretty good, but I was surprised later on that the young woman playing Marlena was not the great ZD, but a carbon copy. Not since the great Skeet Ulrich/Johnny Depp heist have I seen such a blatant aping of an actor's style and look, and that's distracting.
This is a short review for a short film. While I enjoyed Cloverfield for what it was, I was left wanting a lot more, and not in a good way. Those of you prone to motion sickness would do well to stay the heck away from Cloverfield, since there is a lot of turbulence involved in the shaki-cam-ness. I give Cloverfield a 9 out of 22 on the 22 scale.