One monster of a story

‘Cloverfield’ gives a panicked-person’s eye view of horrible happenings in New York City.

By ROGER MOORE

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

“Cloverfield” arrives in theaters more marketing phenomenon than movie, a “Blair Godzilla Project” built on an unknown cast, “found video,” a little-seen monster and a lot of hype.

Though this secretive, low-budget monster-munches-Manhattan thriller is entertaining enough to make Steven Spielberg smack his head and go, “That’s how I should’ve done ‘War of the Worlds,’” all it amounts to is mostly smoke and mirrors.

It is a tribute to the cult of J.J. Abrams of TV’s “Lost,” the last “Mission: Impossible” movie and the upcoming “Star Trek: The J.J. Generation” that this high-concept “Godzilla” riff has the buzz that it does. A street-level, panicked person’s point of view is a great way to tell this story, very post-9/11. But don’t feel alone if, after its 80 or so camera-shaking, monster movie mash-up minutes, you’re wondering, “Is that it?”

Found video

The found video here is a government tape for “Case Designate Cloverfield.” Something bad happened in Manhattan. This tape, from the Golden Age of the camcorder, is one of many that documented that event. We see it, unedited, a home movie of a failed love affair, a “sayonara” party to 30ish Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and the Thing that Interrupted Rob’s Party.

Twenty minutes of cutesy, awkward and effective “back story” consists of Rob’s earlier, mostly recorded-over “best day ever” with his best girl. Testimonials from his young professional friends and acquaintances at his party, recorded by his goofy friend Hud (T.J. Miller) and brother Jason (Mike Vogel), are taped over that best day. Hud cuts off heads, focuses a little too closely on cleavage, videos a lover’s spat (Odette Yustman is Rob’s ex), overhears conversations he shouldn’t and tapes his own amusingly clumsy efforts to get to know Marlena, played by Lizzy Caplan as an homage to Zooey Deschanel.

Then, BOOM! The lights flicker. They dash to the roof of the Central Park apartment to see an explosion in New York harbor. They run downstairs in time to see the flaming head of the Statue of Liberty crash in the street in front of the building.

Generational comment

One of the sly, perhaps unintended subtexts of “Blair Witch” was its commentary on a naive, media-saturated generation more at home looking at a screen than experiencing the real world. In “Cloverfield,” they’ve grown older, but not up. They stop in the midst of this horrific moment to take cell-phone snaps of Liberty’s skull. They dash for safety, until their cell rings. Ohmygod, if you don’t stop, you might lose the signal!

And through it all, Hud keeps that camera rolling, capturing the panic, the confusion, the end of the Empire State building, New York looters, the Army’s arrival, the mass evacuation of Manhattan, and glimpses of “this terrible thing” that is doing this, and its tiny accomplices, which are, “I don’t know. Something else. Also terrible.”

Unique point of view

Buildings fall, bombers bomb, the deafening chaos of battle surrounds them — and Hud keeps taping.

“People are gonna want to know how it all went down,” he says. Yes, it does remind you of raw 9/11 footage.

The partygoers’ camcorder point of view limits who we’re exposed to, thus Manhattan seems strangely stripped of older, less gorgeous people. The unknown cast is so unknown (save for the odd TV credit or supporting part in “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants”) that it lends the film a TV-news-footage veracity.

But there’s a reason Ridley Scott cast Yaphet Kotto, Vanessa Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton and company in “Alien.” We sympathize with the plight of these young lives interrupted in “Cloverfield.” We don’t empathize with them. Yaphet Kotto’s grisly, heroic death in Scott’s monster classic has more resonance than every casualty in this improv movie. The actors in “Cloverfield” don’t have many emoting moments, and don’t make enough of them.

Little credit

Director Matt Reeves and writer Drew Goddard are getting little credit for the movie, which is appropriate, since it’s the concept that is dazzling here. Monster-movie conventions by the score clutter the film. Once again, Manhattan is evacuated (“I Am Legend” did it better).

How many times have we seen rats fleeing the subways because they know something’s coming up behind our heroes? Too many, most recently in “Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem.” As in “The Mist” and “Signs,” the digital monster is much scarier unseen, or only glimpsed.

But it’s still a jolt to the genre. The camera tumbles, the smoke billows, gigantic footsteps thunk, women shriek and the car alarms blare. And we are there. Even if we don’t care as much for these strangers as we should, we know Hud was right. We do want to know “how it all went down.”