Skepse

Director: Matt Reeves
Casting: Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Odette Yustman, …
Lenght: 85mn
Rating : 

J.J. Abrams’s creative team have struck once again with their capacity to innovate and bring new blood into an old genre, showing that even the least likely of all sory can be surprisingly enticing if seen through the right angle.

And that’s precisely what Cloverfield is about: new angles. In a way reminiscent of the Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield has been entirely shot in the first perspective of a handheld camera. Now that does not mean the movie itself has been shot using your cheap mass-produced DV camcorder, which seem to be a topic of grand interest for many finicky viewers with too much time on their hands. Actually Cloverfield has been shot using a variety of cameras, including a pretty expensive Sony HD cam that one could only dream of purchasing. But that is not the point, the idea is that the movie introduce an entirely fresh perpective to the “Godzilla type” monster flick, one that takes you right in the middle of the chaos provoked by the sudden apparition of an unknown entity in the center of Manhattan.

Undoubtedly many will complain about the fact the images from a handheld camera are to shaky, blurry and hard to follow, they’ll even say they got seasick in the middle of the show and had to run out of the theater to purge their upset stomachs… While it is quite possible that some people might be more sensitive to that type of disturbance, the vast majority of viewers will go undisturbed through the whole movie. And frankly, what a movie!

I have not had that much fun in a horror movie in a long time! Cloverfield may not have a circonvoluted scenario, acting might be limited to its bare necessity and everything might, after all, be quite predictable, but it is damn efficient. Abrams had already used some aspect of reality shows in order to infuse some fresh ideas into the world of TV shows, the result – Lost – is hated by some, adored by others, a characteristic shared by many precursors. In the same way Cloverfield is to the monster movie, what Lost and 24 are to Star Trek and Law and Order, a proud specimen of a new wave that will redefine the codes and expectations of future audiovisual productions, even if it might itself not remain under the spotlight for very long.

In Cloverfield, you will find no big name, comedy tricks, violins or outstanding choreographies. The emotion is a raw, the acting bare and no actors can get the spotlight nor shine in any noticeable way, everything is about the experience, slightly voyeurish, of being the first-hand witness to an unbelievable catastrophy. The movie is pitiless and brutal like those cellphone footage of 9/11 from which it took much inspiration.

Go see it and make your own opinion.

Check the trailer