CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 01/18/08

Godzilla From Ground Level

By david michael wharton

Writer Drew Goddard spins an "ant's-eye-view" story of a giant monster rampaging through Manhattan, and while he delivers admirably on that concept, it's a shame that the characters underfoot don't have more depth.

Cloverfield

Drew Goddard

On the eve of Rob's (Michael Stahl-David) departure for Japan to take a new job as vice president of something-or-other, his improbably beautiful friends gather in his improbably beautiful apartment for a surprise going-away party. Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel) drafts their friend Hud (T.J. Miller) to record the event. Unfortunately, Hud's attempts to hit on the disinterested Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) in between capturing "testimonials" from the partygoers are interrupted by the Statue of Liberty's head careening through the skyline and coming to rest in the middle of their street. Clearly, something big has decided to crash this party. As chaos descends on the city, a small group of the friends attempt to make their way to safety through looting, military assaults, and a pissed-off critter stomping the holy hell out of everything in sight. But when Rob gets a frantic call from love interest Beth, the friends must decide if they will continue to flee the city, or follow Rob deeper into the madness to rescue Beth.

Composed of "found footage," Cloverfield tells its story entirely through Hud's video recording of the fateful night. If Hud doesn't point a camera at it, the friends don't comment on it, or the odd news story in the background doesn't report about it, we don't know about it. This may frustrate the legions of fanboys who have spent months analyzing every frame of the trailers trying to figure out what the monster is (It's a whale! It's a dinosaur! It's Voltron!), but is entirely in keeping with what the film sets out to do. Ultimately, "mythology" questions such as where the monster came from are much less pressing to the protagonists than issues such as "What the hell is going on?" or "How do I keep from being eaten?" or "Did you guys just hear something?" The questions that obsess the internet are not foremost in the minds of victims of a giant monster attack, and Cloverfield wisely realizes that the best course of action is to simply hint at these background answers while keeping the focus on putting our characters through hell and ratcheting up the tension. Cloverfield is true to what it sets out to be: an intense, ground-level trek alongside the people seen running and screaming in the background of all those other monster movies. If you want a Magical Expository Scientist Guy to answer all your questions, please check your local theater during any given summer season.

The found-footage concept also allows numerous storytelling tricks that wouldn't necessarily work in a normal film. Hud is neither a professional cameraman nor a journalist, so he doesn't always point the camera in the direction you want him to. During one sequence where the friends find themselves in between the rock of the monster and the hard place of American military firepower, Hud is less interested in capturing footage of the creature than in hiding behind a car and hoping he survives the next sixty seconds. By confining everything to what's seen by the lens of the camcorder, even scenes spent running through the spacious concrete canyons of Manhattan are pervaded by a sense of claustrophobia, and when the violence above ground eventually drives the friends down into pitch-black subway tunnels, that claustrophobia becomes almost suffocating. Despite the inherent limitations of the concept, Goddard even comes up with a clever way to get in a few "beauty shots" of the creature thanks to helicopter news footage playing in the background of an early scene. (That's one thing the internet naysayers needn't worry about: you do get several good looks at the monster before things are through). Perhaps the most interesting narrative trick is the concept that all of this is being recorded over a tape of Rob and Beth's one "perfect day," allowing backstory to be filled in piecemeal during moments when the camera is jostled or shut off, at which points the happier, less monster-y footage peeks through.

Unfortunately, the film's commitment to realism does falter in some areas. With the exception of Hud, the group of friends are unmemorable outside of their attractiveness. While the early party scenes front-load enough who-likes-who, who's-related-to-who, and who-slept-with-who backstory to give us a general sense of how these people are interconnected and what's at stake for them, we don't really know enough to care much about them. Also, the script breaks up the tension with just enough humor to keep things from getting too dour, but the dialogue often shows too much polish for ostensibly average joes stuck in the middle of a crisis. It doesn't distract from the surrounding monster mayhem, but if Goddard really wanted to sell the realism 100%, the script might have benefited from a "roughing-up" pass or two. And finally, our heroes do occasionally lapse into that most tragic of ailments, "Stupid Horror Movie Character Syndrome." It's a most lamentable condition wherein protagonists' common sense and self-preservation atrophy to dangerous levels, meaning they never leave the obviously haunted house, never behead the seemingly dead axe murderer just to be sure, and always decide that splitting up in the abandoned meat-packing plant is a good idea. While Cloverfield's protagonists never dial their brains down quite that far, they do make a few questionable decisions along the way. Fortunately, the biggest of these decisions—the choice to go save Beth rather than getting the hell out of Dodge—is wisely rooted in emotion. No, it might not make logical sense to risk horrible death to go save the girl you're in love with…but that's not a decision that most of us would make from a position of logic.

If you're looking for multi-dimensional characters, look elsewhere. If you're expecting to have all your questions about the monster answered in graduate-thesis detail, look elsewhere. But if you're looking for a fast-paced, intense ride through the streets of a city being ground beneath the heel of an irate behemoth, Cloverfield delivers.

Cloverfield
Paramount Pictures
Rated PG-13; 84 min.

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David Michael Wharton in managing editor of CS Weekly and a contributing editor for Creative Screenwriting. He once survived a giant monster attack on Sheboygan, WI.

Cloverfield courtesy Paramount Pictures

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