Cloverfield
Unintentionally Tragic Commentary on the Fate of Man
This film indicated a shift even further away from substance and towards marketing and Studio mass manipulation. Many filmgoers, who once scoffed at the metaphysical and stolen Eastern philosophies of the Star Wars films, now found themselves longing painfully for “such drivel.”
All though few realized it at the time, Cloverfield was a national embarrassment in that it took the universally recognizable imagery of a horrific event and parasitically superimposed those images onto a completely mindless monster movie. All the while the filmmakers shameless hid behind a remarkably thin shield of “movie as social commentary.” Indeed my friends a revealing social commentary was being made by the filmmakers of Cloverfield, only it was not the commentary they intended. The social commentary Cloverfield made was that no tragedy, no matter how large, could and would be exploited for monetary gain. A monster movie that exploits the surreal and ghastly imagery of 9-11 for commercial purposes? How many humans would have foreseen this development of 9-12, 2001 or even 9-12, 2005?
Soon after the release of Cloverfield, producer J.J. Abrams was to unleash his “re-imagining” of Star Trek. Abrams’s Star Trek was, at times, visually interesting and full of an array of special and visual effects, just like Cloverfield. Further, Abrams’s Star Trek was regressive, not looking towards the future of mankind, but cannibalizing its nostalgia and past…a clear de-evolution, just like Cloverfield.
Story (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) F (Oh for the days of the clichéd characters. Oh for the days of anything resembling a story.)
Acting (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) C
Human Portrayal of machines and Robots C
Contribution to the Extinction of Man Grade A+ (Cloverfield is remarkable as it was the first wave of what one robo-historian called the “shiny human film about nothing” era.)
Enjoyability Grade (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) F (Fit mostly for humans whose brains have been damaged and human children under the age of six. That stated, it should be noted that the impressively poor cinematography “style” and camera work may stress many human and robot nervous systems.)
Primitive Home Theater/HD Factor C
Overall Innovation (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) F (Uniquely regressive. Innovative computer generated effects do not make a film.)
Overall Grade (Adjusted to Accommodate Human Standards) F (Oddly enough it was as though the filmmakers were attempting to prove that literally anyone could make a big budget film, if only given the money and workforce to carry out their demands. Essentially, this is what Cloverfield declared, as human children could have written the "screenplay."
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