Cloverfield: An American Kaiju
- Disclaimer: This post contains a few plot details regarding “Cloverfield,” the monster, and a few conspiracies about it. Continue on at your own risk. If you have already seen the movie, hit the jump.
Cloverfield is an awesome movie, granted a bit gimmicky and filled with blatant 9/11 backlashes and iconic disaster shots (read: Statue of Liberty decapitated. Empire State building destroyed), but essentially a success in what it was trying to achieve.
Cloverfield is a American Kaiju film. Kaiju is Japanese for “strange beast,” and can best describe the Godzilla movies and even the baddies from the original Power Rangers series. However, Godzilla is Japanese, and plays on their culture; it feels cheesy to us. When Godzilla was remade in 2001, it was a mess. I remember going to the theater for it and thinking it was cute and easy to grasp, not what would expect to feel after such a film. The film bombed, and the sequel was canned(you see an egg hatch at the end, supposedly paving way for a Son of Zilla that thank god never happened). We learned that another giant Japanese destructo monster movie just won’t cut it in the US. JJ Abrams, producer of that “Lost” series you probably never heard of, knew this and spent years planning the next attack.
With the help of viral sites and ambigious trailers, Cloverfield immediately gained a mysterious appeal. What was it? A monster? Aliens? Voltron? Nobody knew, and the details were magnificently leaked to build up a anticipation that gave the movie the best January open ever in 11 years. The weekend over, some blogs are shouting conspiracy and the inappropriate use of 9/11 and “why Manhattan?” After taking Angel and Eli and his partner Mike to the show, they spent the whole car ride home picking it apart and calling it the worst movie ever, and a waste of money and a giant 9/11 scare flick. I think I need new friends, but whatever. Cloverfield, as much as unofficially was never meant to bring back the past, did mean to stir up the stir up enough feeling to set the mood.
Tags: Angel, Cloverfield, JJ Abrams, Kaiju, Lost, Michael Bonvillian
