The Cinema of the Four

Cloverfield

Given my great-grandfather’s well-known cocaine experimentation, I make generally make it a rule to lead a life of temperance and cleanliness in that area, so as to not give the good Watson IV any reason to suspect that I’m addicted to some narcotic. However, after my complete and utter failure to complete my investigation of “The Bourne Supremacy,” I have become keenly aware of my limits. The shaky camera-work of this weekend’s “Cloverfield” matter had already defeated the digestive systems of many of Scotland Yard’s movie inspectors, and I knew that if I was to endure such a case to its conclusion, drastic measures were called for.

Fortifying myself with a seven-per-cent solution of generic dramamine and applying the ancient Chinese art of acupuncture to pressure points on my wrists, I looked into the found video footage of “Cloverfield,” and found that the Yard had been well-founded in their reactions. Not since “The Blair Witch Project,” had I seen such purposefully amateurish camera work!

The comparison to “Blair Witch” is entirely justified in the case of “Cloverfield.” One can almost hear someone at the concept meeting going, “the problem with Blair Witch was that you never got to see the witch – if you did it with a Godzilla movie, you wouldn’t have that problem!” The buzz-inducing teaser previews, never showing the monster, were a great marketing strategy and surely were undoubtedly responsible for filling many a seat this weekend, but hype is one thing, delivering the goods another.

Does “Cloverfield” deliver the goods? It’s lean hour-and-a-half running time moves well, the visual effects are well done, but there’s really nothing new here. The monster itself is rather generic and unmemorable, making one occasionally wish it actually was Godzilla attacking Manhattan. Perhaps a younger, less jaded audience who didn’t need nausea-preventing drugs might find this effort worthy of raving, but my feeling upon leaving the theater was that outside of the pre-viewing hype, “Cloverfield” won’t be a case any of us remember that far into the future.

What great-grandfather Sherlock would have said:
“Everything comes in circles . . . The old wheel turns and the same spoke comes up.”