Now, this will not be your regular review. I thought the movie was great on all cylinders. Now that, that is out of the way, I'm going to talk about "Why some feel the movie was awful", the supposed "plot holes" in the movie, and the talks of a "sequel." None of what I am saying here is fact, these are just my thoughts. So, ride along with me.
Enjoy!
Viral Marketing: Gift and a Cruse
The Gift: The viral marketing for Cloverfield is by far the best job done when it comes to conveying a story. Even though, "Snakes on the Plane" was ambitious, it was only a one-line joke that turned in to a viral marketing. There was more ridicule and laughing at it than in depth view of the movie. With Cloverfield, came a whole complete story that ranged from tons of the site. You had 01-18-08.com that would randomly give us pictures from the movie and also some that we still don't know anything about. The myspace websites of the characters gave us their personality on things they liked and how they would interact with each other in the movie. The Slusho, Tagruato, and TidoWave sites gave us the backdrop on what really woke the monster up in the movie. Then came the videos of jamieandteddy.com and also the "Chuai" videos. It introduced us to a minor character in the movie that we grew to love and hate (mostly HATE) and the Chuai videos somewhat gave us insight that the monster attacked before New York, that the Army could've known about it (the report of the Coast Guard being there), and Tagruato was there for the ride. Now, we have the Cloverfield: Kishin manga coming out that is supposedly a prequel to all of the events. It's great to know that the Cloverfield mythology is going to live on way after the movie. J.J. Abrams has gave us our "Lost" in movie form, where we as fans have to decipher all the little things that he has giving us. That, when the time comes, and we get our complete story, this puzzle ride was worth it.
Chuai Station Video (English)
The Curse: The curse of viral marketing is that the "target audience" of the people coming in to the movie will not have seen any of it. When it comes down to it, movie websites are only visited by those who are anticipating it. The viral market created a world where people that followed it would not be disappointed at all. That's why the critics that followed this such as Entertaiment Weekly and Spill.com gave the movie praises. They experienced while the traditional movie critic didn't and didn't get what was happening. Standing in line last night at the movie theater, I saw nothing but preteens, middle school to high schoolers, families, and etc. During this time, I told my cousin (who knew a little of the viral marketing) that they probably wouldn't get it. Once the movie started, I was right. A "boo" started in the beginning during the long transition between the Paramount logo and U.S. Department logo. I just shook my head. At the end, moans and groans when throughout the crowd, because "the ending wasn't what they wanted it to be." The ones that didn't were raving about it walking out of the theater. Why such a big opposite effect? The ones raving about it were tying in the viral marketing with it. The others weren't. A lot of my friends never heard of Cloverfield. Some didn't even see commercials for it and even that surprised me. You take a PG-13 movie and a person who only saw one commercial, and they are going to expect a full out action movie, in which it wasn't. Another thing that got people about the ending, that weren't in to the viral marketing, was that there was no "nice lil' bow" at the end of the movie. As my cousin says, "Disney has ruined movies." This all reserves to "happy ending, good triumphant over evil" endings. With monster movies, that is the usual ending. With any villainous character, that's the ending. Prime example, "No Country For Old Men", everybody waited for the character Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem) to get his cumupence at the end of the movie, most likely by Sheriff Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). Didn't happen and people hated the movie because of that. Cloverfield was another example of that. The average person that went didn't leave happy or optimistic. There is a reason why most movies with a depression ending comes near the end of the year. The main is Oscar season, the other is mood of the movie: DEPRESSING! All in all, the viral marketing helped those prepare for the movie while the movie alone left too much open for the common audience member.
Plot holes?
A lot of people felt this movie had tons of plot holes in the movie. I'm going to try to give my opinions on some of the most notable "plot holes" that have bothered people.
When is this movie taken place? One thing that gets people is the time that movie takes place, which April 27th and May 3rd. Is it 2007? 2008? Why was marketed as in real time (myspace, site blogs, etc) and in the movie its not? With the last question, I think that was somewhat out of their hands. They couldn't change the dates as far on the myspace so I believe they went along with it. I believe that the movie takes place in 2008. Reasons why: The dates will make sense as in they slept together on the 26th which is directly one week before the 3rd (both on Saturdays). It will also help with new manga comic, Cloverfield: Kishin. If it is a prequel and the next installment isn't til February, by doing once a month, it will lead to the actual date of the attack. It makes the most logical sense.
How the hell the monster get behind them? Is there more than one monster? Yes there is more than one monster and you saw them. The BIG ONE and the sea louse. That's it. We all know that it is a baby, but let me answer how it got behind them. If you remember, it did jump up and attack the helicopter. It wasn't a small jump either because the helicopter was way above the buildings. You have to remember in the scene when Beth and Rob are crossing buildings. The monster was around the height of the skyscrapers but was by no mean taller than them. They dragged Rob and were about to go. I figure the best explanation was it was there the whole time, just quiet. Rob and Beth back was turned when HUD went back for the camera. From the looks of it, he was still disoriented and his eyes were only on the camera. Hud was focused on getting the camera, ran over, and didn't notice until they brought attention to it. It follows the monster movie protocol of being aware of the monster when its too late. So, Why did the monster look so small? When HUD progressed up to the monster, he zoomed in so he could see the face. This would have made it look smaller and that would have gave it the look as if it didn't have to go far to attack him.
A sequel?Yes, director Matt Reeves have talked about a sequel from a different perspective. I believe the best way this could work is from multiple perspectives. Just think, Cloverfield was only about one tape that was found. There has to be dozens of tapes found by now in New York. As people know, I do want to produce movies one day and this will be a list of things they could show through tapes.
The Perspectives:
The Chuai Station: As we see in the video, there is the cell phone video and also the camera of those on the boat. Possibly there is more footage than was giving to the media. Also, the Coast Guard could have film on what happen. That could start the film off.
The Oil Tanker: There could have been a surveillance camera that might have survived the explosion. Using this, we could see how the monster attacked the tanker and the possibilities of what was on it.
Death camera: There could be many of these where somebody was videotaping or surveillance of attack happen with the big monster or the little ones on random humans.
Sea Louse autopsy: As we saw in the film, they do have one. Just like the famous Alien Autopsy, we could see them dissecting the monster and finding out its origins. This could help us no more about the bigger one.
Military: There could be many of these or could be the main perspective. It could also explain this picture which could have been before the attack which will make sense on why the military was there so fast when all hell broke loose.
Family: This also could be a main plot of a video of a family who watches the attack on TV and notice that they are in danger and need to get out.The End?
IT'S STILL ALIVE!
