If the terrified characters in the under- siege flick “Cloverfield” could get service on their mobiles, this is what they’d text: OMG!
In director Matt Reeves’ and writer Drew Goddard’s smart nod to the inarticulateness that terror and desperation wreak, there are moments when that is precisely what our protagonists utter. “Omigod. Omigod. Omigod!”
***RATING | Hand-Held Monster Movie
Actually, Rob (Michael Stahl-David) does get intermittent cell service. Evidently, it’s easier to imagine the vast destruction of a city than it is to envision the short-circuiting of our wired lives.
And phone calls from love interest Beth figure into the choices he and three friends make after New York City comes under attack by a creature from the sea.
Fully visceral, visually impressive, “Cloverfield” opens chillingly and sweetly. Teletype text alerts us that we are watching evidence of mass destruction. It was found in “the area formerly known as Central Park.”
What we see next is a homemade video. It’s April 17, 6:45 a.m., and, says the voice of the amateur cameraman after looking out on Central Park, “It’s already a great day.”
Thanks to a foul-up, this hopeful footage of Rob and Beth (Odette Yustman) will be taped over with a night, nearly a month later, of a surprise goodbye party.
Rob’s headed to Japan for a promising job. Brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas) play hosts.
Jason wrangles friend Hud (Denver-born T.J. Miller) into interviewing partygoers for a testimonial video. Beth may or may not show. She does, with a date.
The splicing of love’s possibility with disasters both personal and global is the film’s ambitious undertaking. Can “Cloverfield” relate all that transpires with this one video?
Before its speed, chaos and foolhardy rescue mission overpower subtler emotions, “Cloverfield” nearly pulls this off.
While the filmmakers borrow from the hand-held scrutiny of “The Blair Witch Project,” they have a better budget for tools to pull off the characters’ obsessive self-surveillance.
The prologue to destruction is deftly done. There’s humor and a bit of heartbreak. By the time Rob, Jason and Hud hold a heart- to-heart, our attachments have started to form.
“Forget the world,” resolves Rob, “and hang on to the people you care most about.” Cue the seat-rattling boom and an unearthly roar.
In the aftermath of 9/11, witnesses to the attacks were often quoted as saying the events felt “like a movie.”
The initial upheavel in “Cloverfield” elicits the opposite observation. The filmmakers borrow from those events: the ways buildings crumble in on themselves; the willful fog of debris and dust that sweeps down the avenues; even the partygoers’ rush to the rooftop of a downtown loft to get a better look at what’s transpiring in lower Manhattan has a sorrow-laden echo.
The filmmakers don’t share much about the monster’s motives or makeup. I learned he’s a furious baby from the bowels of the sea from production notes that give a tour of his monstrous psychology.
With the exception of scant news reports, all the information in the film must be gleaned by the characters’ accidental documentarian Hud.
Reeves and his producer and friend J.J. Abrams (“Lost”) know how to put an appealing cast together. They did it for “Felicity.” And the 20-somethings here are a genial, foxy bunch. Even the taciturn Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) proves to be a decent and honorable warrior.
From the moment he walks into the party, you can see the star possibilities in Stahl-David. He’s got a ready, authentic smile. He promises to make Rob a character you’ll follow to, if not the ends of the Earth, the end of Manhattan. That this doesn’t quite work out is not his fault.
Grief, it turns out, is hard to maintain throughout a movie that is ultimately intended as a cathartic pleasure trip — albeit a scary one.
Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com; also blogs on denverpostcom/mad moviegoer
“Cloverfield”
PG-13 for violence, terror and disturbing images. 1 hour, 42 minutes. Directed by Matt Reeves. Written by Drew Goddard. Photography by Michael Bonvillain. Starring Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel and Odette Yustman. Opens today at area theaters.
