I went to see Cloverfield tonight. With high expectations, I am sorry to say I cannot recommend this move to those that may be susceptible to motion sickness as myself.
First I generally love JJ Abrams work. I cant wait until December for the new Star Trek. However, Cloverfield left a bad taste in my mouth. And that is not a metaphor.I went to my local multiplex, the AMC PAlace 16 in a suburb or New Orleans, to see Cloverfield. I had very high hopes. Quite frankly, I am fed up with todays current crop of “action” flix. Are the directors today spending so much money on special and digital effects that they can’t afford a frickin’ Steadicam?!
What in the hell is up with the shaky-cam!? It seams every movie these days spend an inordinate amount of screen time using this zoom in, zoom out hand-held “shaky-cam” technique. I am sick of it. Literally. Cloverfield is the 2nd movie that I had to leave because of motion sickness. Prior to that was The Kingdom. I did not last until a little after the Brooklyn Bridge destruction.
Now, I have to admit, the sequences up until then were quite impressive.
I saw the previews. I sort of new that there was going to be a significant amount of shaky-cam, but the entire movie!? There was even a sign at the ticket booth warning movie goers of the technique causing a sensation that not unlike a roller-coaster. I should have paid attention. But I figured, how bad could it be. They certainly wouldn’t shoot the whole flic in shaky-cam. Hopefully cutting between character pov to locked off cams for the money/hero shots. But no.
So here I sit with a cold towel on my neck, sucking on ice cubes, trying to keep the images of some dillweed running down the Brooklyn Bridge with a home DV camera (even the cheapest, crappiest digital-8 handicam has built-in steadyshot image stabilization).
I think from now on I will do a little more research and avoid these type of movies.
