.: Roberts' Reviews - Movie Reviews :.

Only two weeks into the new year and we already have our first MUST-SEE movie of 2008. Of course, I am referring to Cloverfield, the new J.J. Abrams monster-in-New-York flick whose title is as curious as its release date.

More on that later, but first, the review. Cloverfield is shot entirely on a handheld camera a la The Blair Witch Project and circles dizzily around a group of young adults that get together at a New York apartment to say farewell to Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) who has accepted a job in Japan. The party is well attended and is your typical gathering of hotties and handsomes that spend more time playing with their phones, blackberry's and iPods than caring about anything going on around them.

Hud (T.J. Miller), who is a couple-of-cards-short-of-a-full-deck, is the best friend of the departing Rob and has the unenviable task at the party of shoving a video camera in people's faces and asking them to say some nice words about Rob that will be captured on digital media forever. You know, like the schmuck at the last wedding you went to trying to get you to say something clever or stupid on the spot.

The night takes its first turn when Rob's female best friend (and someone he just recently slept with) shows up with her new boyfriend. The tension and the humor surrounding the duos newly identified relationship with the apartment patrons puts a damper on what was, up to this point, a trendy happening social gathering.

But who we kiddin'? Anyone who has seen the endless commercials or trailers know what is about to happen and over fifteen minutes into the screening, you'll have that little voice inside your head getting louder and louder repeating the four words "Get on with it!". The second turn does not disappoint.

It is then that the building shakes as if the ground just had a seizure and the power flickers. Scared, everyone turns to the television for updates where they hear news of a reported earthquake within the Manhattan city limits. Others, head to the roof to see if they can get a better look at the chaos that was unfolding. Then, just as we are about to hurl our popcorn thanks to the unsteadiness of the camera, the action begins. An explosion is seen in the background and balls of flame light up the sky. Running for their lives down to street level, the once happily intoxicated party-goers narrowly evade the head of the Statue of Liberty that has ricocheted off buildings and cars and ended squarely in the middle of the once quiet street.

The 'money-shot' that is part of all the trailers, posters and commercials is the beginning of what is an hour of running, fighting and searching as a small group of the introduced characters, (Rob, Hud, Lily and Marlena) go on a search for the injured ex-Rob who has left a incoherent message for help on Rob's cell phone.

The only thing stopping them from reaching their goal is a creature the size of Godzilla tearing apart the city, the army which is launching enough firepower to level Afghanistan, spider/crab-like creatures whose bite just might make your body explode and a city that is falling apart with large portions of buildings and structures falling from the sky like mosquitoes under a blue zapper.

Whether they make it or not to save the poor damsel in distress doesn't mean jack-poo to most of us that paid the price of admission. This is first and foremost a monster movie and the more monster the more movie.

For the first third, we don't really get a good glimpse of the creature. We see its tentacles, we witness its destruction of the city and we feel the power of his wrath under our feet thanks to the theatre's sub-woofers. But halfway into the film, a glance at the creature seems to be as hard to come by as a sighting of Mel Gibson at a Synagogue. Add to this complaint that the camera shakes and shimmies so much that even when a view of the beast can be taped, we get a quick amateurish shot reminiscent of the old 1980's U.F.O. videos that would appear on Unsolved Mysteries.

As annoying as this might sound, it doesn't really take away from what Abrams and director Matt Reeves were trying to accomplish. With definite and deliberate shades of 9/11, Reeves expertly shows the chaos and the confusion of the unfolding events. People are running in unison, streets eerily quiet while covered in the dust created from fallen buildings, police and EMT sirens heard around every corner. For their atmospheric attempts at a city in the process of being destroyed, they deserve an A.

But for the continued use of the handheld, I have to give the team a C+. At best. Useful in The Blair Witch project, the technique was successful because there was nothing really for the audience to see. The events were more to be experienced. With Cloverfield, there is a giant crab-like creature looking like it came straight out of Starship Troopers that we paid good money to analyze! We do eventually get a good close-up towards the finale, but for this reviewer, it was a little of too little too late.

Yes, one can make the argument that the movie is about friendship and love with the creature only there as a plot device. But I argue that you put the same movie characters in a situation that doesn't have the city being torn up by a menacing beast and you have a straight to DVD snore-fest.

Luckily, there are moments when Hud is able to hold on to the camera for a while giving us a glimpse of the cities sheer destruction. And, the camera does come into better effect when the group decides to walk through the abandoned subway system and we have to go to night vision. These brief moments of calm helped me take a breath and spit out the bad taste I had for some of the dialogue and the lack of interest I had in the characters.

The best part of the film is really the final 15 minutes. We finally get to see the creature in full and there are some brief terrifying moments including a frightening helicopter ride. These final moments lead to an ending that left most of my audience in disbelief ("It can't be over!") while it had me thinking it was one of the better film endings in monster history. Sort of.

I think the film would have been brilliant with the ending at the conclusion of the helicopter crash. I thought the film would have been well above average if it ended once Hud was dealt with. And I thought the film was just good having the ending conclude with two of the major parties being …well, you'll see.

Cloverfield's trailer was attached to the Transformers print back in the summer of 2007 and started a rash of internet chatter. Even the most fervent of us movie geeks didn't know anything about the film and its trailer sent us rushing home to our iMacs clamoring for information.

But then it kind of died off. There were no real new trailers until just before the release and the film's title became just as big of a story as the film itself (the name Cloverfield has no relevance in the film and was the name of the street to where the offices of Bad Robot were located). Most of us continued to shake our heads around the film's release month. January is a dead zone for films. The re-release of Star Wars is the highest grossing film for the month of January since tracking began and that was only 30-something million. This is due mostly to football playoffs and bad weather days which take away thousands of potential audience members. Cloverfield looked more like a summer release. Something that would have us circling a date somewhere between May and July. Don't get me wrong, I think Cloverfield is about to break some records but I still don't understand why they took the chance.

When it was all over (which took just 85 minutes), I was happy to have it ended and to have my balance back. Cloverfield did what it needed - it entertained and was a good film - but not something I could have sat through for another thirty minutes. I then used the extra time to go to Circuit City and inquire as to where I can get a video camera as used in the film. One that seems to run for hours on end without requiring a battery recharge. The search continues.