Quarantine + Cloverfield

Another double entry. Was gonna do quadruple, but that can get out of hands and bore you to death too quickly.

First off...



Objective Rating (How much merit I think it deserves):
6.5/10
Subjective Rating (How much I personally like it):
7.5/10


There was an original Spanish version called "Rec". Pretty original zombie movie. I know, there is no such thing as an original zombie movie, but "Rec" was refreshing. And this movie is basically the exact same thing as "Rec" with minor changes.

The female protagonist is one half of a TV crew shadowing firefighters for a night. The other half of the crew is the cameraman, whose camera is the eye that shoots this whole movie (so yes, it's first-person, which makes it more real for the audience).

They follow two firefighters to a call to an apartment building. Apparently there is an old lady who has been screaming. There are also 2 cops present, and some of the residents of the buildings have come down to the atrium due to the disturbance. The cops and the firefighters followed by the TV crew open the old lady's door and see her standing in her nightgown covered in blood and groaning "no." When they approach her, she bites a cop in the neck.

All heck breaks loose. And worse, the government has sealed the building so no one can get out, including the TV crew and the firefighters and the cops. Anyone who approaches a window or any other exit is threatened with a bullet from the outside. Plastic sheets seal all the openings. And everyone who is bitten by the infected shows rabies-like symptoms, becomes really aggressive and attacks everyone else. Let the human drama commence.

I have to say the original Spanish version plays much more into the human interest aspect. The tenants are a diverse group. Racism, sexism, selfishness, possible homophobia all have a part. The American version downplays all except for the selfishness.

But upon watching the story a second time, I did get some things out of it that I missed before. The extra features helped greatly. For example, the ending used to not make any sense to me, but The Thin Man (no, not from "Pan's Labyrinth") at the end is the progressive stage of the disease, what all the people will look like if they stay infected and alive long enough. (You won't know what I'm talking about until you've seen the ending, so this doesn't count as a spoiler.)

The "making of" featurette also shows how hard it is to shoot a movie first-person. I thought the thing could be low-budget, since they can just cast a real cameraman as the cameraman and he can just shoot the whole movie that way. But NO, was I wrong. It's extra hard because the shots are all really long in terms of time (multiple 5-minute shots in one movie can kill any movie crew) so if you screw up, it's all the way from the beginning. Again. So this means all the actors have to spend more time rehearsing together to make sure they get it right in as few takes as possible.

It's hard to arrange for lighting. It's hard to do all the special effects (e.g. blood spewing) because the camera is constantly moving so you can't have a blood tube running to a tank 10 feet away out of the camera's view. So now I have a new respect for this movie. And then...


Objective Rating (How much merit I think it deserves):
5.5/10
Subjective Rating (How much I personally like it):
4/10


The idea is good. The imageries are sharp and memorable. The plot and camerawork.... suck.

This is a much bigger-budget movie than "Quarantine." MUCH bigger. But the end result is so disappointing.

What's-his-face is moving to Japan so his friends are having a going-away party for him in NYC. His best friend is documenting the party with a video camera. In the middle, a monster hits NYC and wreaks havoc. He and 3 people decide to go downtown TOWARD the monster to rescue his bittersweet girlfriend who has just broken up with him. His friend decides to document the trip, and the movie results.

A lot of fancy CG fireworks, the monster, a wrecked NYC, the trashed Lady Liberty on the cover, missile fire, etc etc etc. I'm impressed with that. Producer J.J Abrams ("Lost") said he got the inspiration for a monster movie from Godzilla in Tokyo. But this monster is too vague. You do get a close-up of the monster near the end, but it's supposed to be giant, 30o-foot tall and all that. In the shot it looks about 10-feet tall, if that. Inconsistencies like this really ruins the movie.

And the camerawork. "Quarantine" had the good excuse for the somewhat steady camera because the character is a cameraman. "Cloverfield" has no such excuse so they made the camera really unsteady, really amateurish (not even amateru, just downright shaky and horrible). Gives you headaches and makes you dizzy and basically makes you miss all the shots of anything you'd want to catch, like a glimpse of the monster.

The plot is very chaotic. There is basically no plot. There is no plan, no train of thought to follow through. And the characters are mostly... either jerks or wimps. I know it's harsh, but it's just very hard to care about them at all. Live, die, why am I watching you again?

I got a really bad review of the movie from a friend at the time it came out in theaters. Which is why I'm a hard-core horror fan and I haven't bothered to see this movie any sooner. I would never have seen it, but this was a family rental so I might as well. The DVD's extra features kind of explained the things a bit better, how the monster is actually just a baby and is lost and scared, which makes it more dangerous because it doesn't know what it's doing and it's cornered so it will do anything. But if the creature creator didn't say these things in words, I would never have gotten them out of watching the movie.

Really, for such a great idea (monster in NYC! Like King Kong but more bloodthirsty and having less regard for a particular blonde) and such a great location, this movie really should have delivered more.