Gatchaman 2013

There have been a few live action Gatchaman projects over the years-- I recall one commercial for a cell phone company that was pretty slick for its time, with extra SMAP.

Below is the trailer for the latest and greatest, it's not quite The Avengers, but it sure tries. Maybe it's trying too hard? But hey, dig those costumes.


(My favorite moment? 1:10... Bump of Chicken)

Inception

Inception at its core is a heist movie and in this it follows procedure dutifully. There's the hardened veteran, his right hand man, an estranged love with unclear loyalties, the crew of assembled regulars, the wild card, and of course the inductee. Delve deeper into the formula and even more archetypes and familiar plot points appear. The only real originality in this ensemble is "the score" and the setting it resides in.

But what a setting.

The big caper, the "one last job," goes down in a dream. A realm both intangible but wholly realized. The dream has it's own rules, regulations, caveats and threats. The goal of the heist adds an extra layer of clever, the gang is charged to place something instead of taking. When looked at from afar, it all remains incredibly simple, which heaps the weight of its success onto the execution.

But what an execution.

Christopher Nolan has upped his game by taking a genre that is well loved (and often well represented) into a cinematic experience as fresh and exciting as ever. Watching Inception play out is a reminder of why we love movies. The base premise is interesting enough, invading dreams with the ability to manipulate and control the world around oneself is plenty to set anyone's fantasies afire. But it's the story that is so goddamned well crafted that the viewer is drawn into it just as deeply as the characters themselves. The concept remains simple, but storyline quickly becomes terribly complex as newer and more radical concepts are introduced. We are eased in, one concept at a time, and just as the stakes are raised, so too become the tiers both the players and the viewer must navigate. By the time Inception is entrenched in its own plot the film is working on a dizzying number of levels, all wrapped around themselves and spinning pure story magic. Dreams are happening within dreams within dreams, timelines of each compounded and compressed. It builds and unfolds like origami from an invisible hand of a master craftsman and it is all immensely entertaining.

Every cliche is spun sideways as they cause their own twists and ripple effects in the dreams they inhabit. A car chase in one dream affects a fight scene in another. Nail-biting minutes on one level translate into precious seconds on its predecessor. Action and drama are presented in pop-corn chomping awe with imagery that will be pretty hard to forget in today's love 'em and leave 'em tentpole onslaughts. This is high praise, although the truth is it's hard to ignore when it's all up on screen.



The cast of actors is just as refreshing. DiCaprio's Cobb anchors the film with a deserved leading man maturity, but his supporting cast lights up around him, even alongside Nolan's oft-featured stable of go-to's. Standouts include Ellen Paige's portrayal of dream architect Ariadne, who covers the role of leading viewers around the world while maintaining a smart and insightful determination of her own. Most fun to watch is Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Arthur, Cobb's number two who is given more than his fair share of weight to pull. Aurthur's shining moment comes in a hotel hallway fight scene that is one of those "gotta see it" experiences, a display of brute force amid freefall interwoven throughout the film's climax.

The hard science behind much of Inception's dream-wrangling is glossed over, seemingly a non-detail vehicle that allows the characters to traverse an incredible landscape. In writing and directing, Nolan chooses his battles to give the audience the most bang for the buck. A see-saw of delivery, at times exposition can be spooned with as much grace as a toddler's meal, only to be followed by sophisticated mind games relentlessly piled on top of one another with barely a breath between. The dream worlds warp and transform around all of it, the characters swim between them in search goals both tangible and nebulous. What's created is a great, great movie. Although with acclaim coming in steady streams, there is still the voice of opposition that demands to be heard in our age, as if no film is deserving enough to just be labeled as "good." In fact it's not entirely easy to lay it on as thick as what's been written here without some introspection, yet the thrill of leaving the theater after the credit roll still lingers. The La Times positions that Inception has polarized critics, citing multiple views confusing the overall effect of the film. Quoting Newsweek's David Ansen, "We live in an era when there's a tendency to overvalue anything that's even slightly good. In another era I don't know if we'd see gushing enthusiasm." Dear lord, it's baffling how much that statement cannibalizes itself given the state of Hollywood today. Inception is a superbly crafted, genre-bending watermark now-- "in another era" it's hard to think of the impact such a film would have had!

Need to cut through it?

"Inception is awesome."

Okay?

Dark World

Another fine example at some of the impressive genre filmmaking coming out of Russia. There is a unique skill at mixing fantasy elements with contemporary settings on display here that it would not be so much exaggeration to say that at this moment, Russia are the masters of this type of genre film...perhaps carving out a new sub-genre as they progress.

Dark World is centered around a group of college students on an anthropological expedition in Karelia who awaken dark, ancient magic; a few become agents for these mystical powers while others set out to fight against their now possessed colleagues.



Once again, the level of visual style on display is certainly one to rival the biggest of Hollywood's tentpole films. However, there is also that intrinsic "Russian" quality to the art direction that sets this and others previously mentioned apart from their tinsel town rivals. For some reason, the setting, the language, the faces all seem to fit this type of fantasy so perfectly that no matter how "improbable" the situation, it just works. Looking forward to seeing more of Dark World as the release draws closer.

Tron (1982) Trailer Reboot

Apologies for making March an unintended "Tron" month, but the final entry for the month just had to go to this expertly recut trailer for the original Tron using today's marketing sensibilities ala my previous post. When you watch this and compare it to the trailer for the Tron Legacy, you start getting a very real sense of what the sequel is lacking...at least in terms about what it is about, or what they want us to know about it.

Tron Legacy

There is a new trailer for the film which calls itself Tron Legacy. I say "the film which calls itself Tron Legacy" because if the word "Tron" were not part of the title, one may certainly not think it had anything to do with the classic film from the 80s set in the world within circuitry and microchips. Though the trailer is rather vague about the story, intentionally so as this is just a teaser trailer, the obvious point of the footage shown is to sell the world of Tron. In this regard, all visuals seem to say that the creators have missed the mark. The attempt to deliver a more realistic interpretation of the Tron-verse only betrays the nature of the film itself. Can the audience be transported to a unique world when so much of it is so similar to the one they occupy? The production design is certainly exquisite...for an extrapolated vision of the future, but does not necessarily lend itself to what Tron is (or should) be. Sadly, the trailer gives a glimpse of characters in obviously rubber suits with lighted trimmings; of light cycles kicking up rain rooster tails in the night; of Recognizers that appear to be futuristic construction equipment; of a "Tron car" creating billows of smoke as it performs burn outs; of characters riding up fiberglass-like elevators to the game platform; of a Tron apartment decorated with very familiar looking furniture; of a girl lounging on a sofa with a trendy off-the-shoulder outfit. This is not Tron. They may want you to think it is, but it is not. The film may have Bruce Boxleitner and Jeff Bridges, playing both an old & young (the film's best special effect) Flynn, but it is not Tron.

Tron is a world of light, data, apps, programs, electricity, bytes, bit streams, etc. The audience need not, and should not, connect to the real world. Our physics do not apply there. Our mechanics don't work there. Our textiles and materials do not belong there. Unfortunately, the filmmakers have decided to bring Tron closer to the film-goer's imagination, instead of taking them to a place beyond it, which is what a film like this should be doing. Right?

Avatar

If a director of unheradled success takes a nearly a decade off before his next offering, that offering has little choice than to be Avatar. Spectacle, epic, love story, parable, technological achievement, Avatar is all these things with not an apology in sight. It is what is in sight, the mind-numbing array of hyper-realized visuals and staccato surround-sound action, that makes the film memorable. You can't help it. You don't have to even like it, but Avatar is throwing things at your eyeballs that your brain barely has time to process, and aren't soon to forget.

As both director and storyteller, James Cameron gives us something wholly his own, under his direct command, for the first time in his career where there are no limits. This is where Avatar is above all things a Cameron film, the flora and fauna of Pandora his fictional stage upon which to set his (literal) star-crossed lovers and white knuckle action sequences. And each is done to exacting specification-- no stone un-rendered, no dramatic expense spared. The story of a crippled marine who's given a chance to see the world as an alien creature and experience its profoundly naturalistic culture... is there any question from the first minute what his destiny is? As such it is too easily dismissed as a plot point, which perhaps ironically is to Avatar's benefit.



What Avatar does not do is herald some new age of film, science fiction or not. The core audience is just too old, those who've likely seen hundreds if not thousands of movies. Every sci-fi trope is thrown at us with abandon, almost insistence, as if Cameron had a checklist he wanted to put out one more time. The script is rife with clichéd one-liners, the absolute minimal techno-babble, and overwrought with mother-earth preaching among zero-subtlety politics. But if one were to put cynicism aside, there still exists that magical time in a young person's life where they haven't "seen it all," and it is this narrow window that will captivate untold viewers like all of our favorite movies once did in the past. And it is that very same notion that Avatar will successfully tap into with everyone else, delivering each multi-genre example of itself with the precision of a sledgehammer. Be it geekery, romance, exploration, fantasy, or explosions, Avatar delivers each with enough blunt force to bring any audience into submission long enough for Cameron to see his story through. At times that story is just plain weird, for every visual "wow" moment there seems to be palpable "WTF?" story element. It's unknown wether to berate or smirk at these choices, but it doesn't matter since the film is constantly bombarding the viewer with all things fantastic to re-draw attention, likely by design.



Regardless of how well or haphazardly the above is delivered, what Avatar does do is present a fully realized fictional world unlike any before. Pandora cannot be denied in its visualization on screen, and the sheer scope of its screen time is staggering considering the endeavor involved in making it come to life. The technical achievement is arguably here and not with the blue, nine-foot feline humanoids that run through it. Every plant, leaf, rock, stream, insect-- you name it -- is there and it is alive. A mixture of fantasy ideals from both film and literature ride the line between wholly believable and somewhat plausible to outright dream imagery in motion. The culmination of this is seen in the night scenes of the bioluminescent forest, a dark-light mind-trip cradling the electric life force that is Pandora. Surely the impact and breadth of Pandora is a prominent, if subliminal, element for the audience to attach itself to, which makes its foreshadowed destruction all the harder to watch when the evils of mankind must rear its ugly head.



Mankind is at its ugliest in Avatar, opening Cameron's floodgates for that which he does best, balls-out action. In the battle between marines and aliens, there is no scenario Cameron leaves untouched in the ultimate game of, well, cowboys and indians. The Earth-sanctioned military employs massive drop shops and mech-warrior battle suits, the alien Navi hurl poison arrows and fly dragons. Soldiers plow down acres of forrest with round after round of heavy ammunition, only to be trampled by building-sized, prehistorically-styled rhinoceri. The dragon-like Banshee tear into VTOL copters, ripping engines apart like paper and flinging them into the floating cliffsides that each navigate with perilous speed. These sequences can barely contain description, at their breakneck pace and relentless onslaught of in-your-face hostility. To say Cameron is in his element here gleefully rides distinct understatement.



Amongst all the flight and fancy, the 3D experience is negligible for some, a necessity for others. For Avatar to be the "make or break" movie to bring the current technology to a mass audience, there simply isn't enough to set itself apart from the regular experience. Arrows flying at the audience have pretty much the same effect on Earth as they do on Pandora. Ultimately the audience will create itself out of moviegoers who genuinely enjoy the gimmick, because films of the budget, breadth, and balls of Avatar will be few and far between. As much talk as there was by theaters, technicians, and studios that would wager wether or not Avatar would re-define the moviegoing experiences of the future, how could any of each accommodate or even expect Avatar-level films on a basis regular enough to fulfill the prophecy? For the price of one Avatar, a dozen slasher or kiddie CG pics could be made and draw the same audience. And a small reminder on 3D box office receipts: 3D films average at a $14 ticket and up, way up for IMAX, which significantly tweaks audience/ticket sales reports.

Third dimension aside, Avatar puts itself forward and predominately succeeds in everything it claims to be. It needn't deliver on all counts no matter the effort employed to do so, for each part of the whole is at a level high enough to satisfy expectations low and high alike. For the seasoned cinema goer it holds an undeniable awe be it in genuine appreciation or sarcastic disbelief. Among the far more numerous popcorn chompers Avatar crowbars its uniqueness with no small amount of bravado. Any focused inspection could certainly begin to de-weave the haphazard series of events and CG magician-ship, but it would remain far beside the entertainment brought by the flamboyant pageantry. In Avatar's case it is more than enough.

Moon

Is Moon an example of art house science fiction, or a throwback to sci-fi of years past? There are several points to both sides, but there is no arguing the quality of this haunting, understated film.

Moon is primarily a character study, that of astronaut and caretaker Sam Bell. Sam is the sole occupant of a mining station on Earth's moon, at which is produced a valuable energy source that has all but eliminated Earth's dependancy of fossil fuels. Sam is the one human required to maintain order and step up to fix any glitches or bugs in the mostly automated mining process. Sam's sole companion is GERTY, a computer artificial intelligence that runs the station as well as providing for Sam's basic needs. Due to continuing complications with the com system, Sam's communication with Earth has been primarily through recorded messages, and Gerty has been Sam's only "live" contact for some time.

As one might expect, there is a heightened sense of isolationism and early hints at Sam succumbing to some form of "space madness," his interactions with Gerty only fueling the mystery. But the mystery itself is exposed in short order, being merely the opening to a much deeper, unexpected conflict who's resolution develops into something staggeringly complex. This is where heart of the film takes hold as Sam struggles with his situation, as does Gerty. There are many elements evocative to sci-fi contemporaries 2001 and Solaris (the former being a rightfully lauded classic, the later (Soderbergh remake) highly under-appreciated).

It is hard to imagine the pressure placed on an actor to carry an entire film, yet the portrayal of Sam Bell by Sam Rockwell appears effortless. This could be due in part to sheer talent or an uncanny level of comfort with being in front of a camera, and is probably a bit of both. There are several Rockwell-isms that fans of his work will enjoy, altho the traversal of character that is employed over the duration of the film is pretty damn impressive. Kevin Spacey provides the cool, calm voice of Gerty with an unashamed channeling of Douglas Rain's HAL 9000. This in and of itself in execution is more like the comfort of a favored t-shirt rather than the clichéd gimmick it could have been, so Spacey does get some points for that.



Sam's moon base isolation is set in a non-defined future that helps the film gloss over some of the finer details, but sharp-eyed and attentive viewers are given enough snippets to do the math for an accurate date. The nebulous timeline was likely by design as to not lock in any specific technology that would distract us from the core story or inherently date the film. In fact true sci-fi aficionados would do best to leave their tech checks at the door, as Moon betrays most of what we know about existing communication, robotics, and artificial intelligence early on. Yet what is relayed in terms of futurism is done so as clean and minimalist. While this may seem like a potential bone of contention by the hardcore, how it is presented in the film succeeds in conveying Moon's surprisingly timeless charm. It's what gives Moon a fascinating feeling of a film out of time, by as much as twenty or thirty years. A long lost or forgotten sci-fi classic, if you will. Should this (hopefully) have been director Duncan Jones' intention, congratulations are in order.

Entertaining and thought-provoking, Moon is a rare offering amidst this summer's mindless blockbusters. Among those that are masquerading as science fiction, Moon shows how it's done.

Terminator Salvation

There was a time where the desire to see an unrestrained continuation of a favorite movie franchise remained unrequited and woefully improbable. These days it seems to be the movie industry's stock and trade. Terminator Salvation falls into a cross-section of Hollywood's recent love affair with reboots and sequels, attempting to not only continue a favored canon but re-invigorate the "property" to a degree which meets the needs of a modern moviegoing audience. Such foundations are often the road to folly, and as a result Salvation has a difficult time straddling the dual responsibilities of which it is being asked.

The introduction of Salvation is protracted and not particularly interesting. There is both an ignorance for establishing what came before and a selfish expectation of the audience to be aware of the very history the film is supposed to represent. Therefore is is difficult to restrain oneself in making comparisons to the previous three films-- when given the time to recall how each of it's predecessors excels in their own areas, it is all to easy to see where the bulk of Salvation falls short.

In story, Salvation is asking the viewer to take a very big leap in regards to what has come before. In prior films the looming threat of a self-aware computer intelligence's triggering of Judgement Day is an act to be prevented in the face of overwhelming obstacles amidst an undercurrent of time travel, presumption of free will, and paradox. Here Judgement Day has come and gone, and the story is rooted in a world that is simultaneously that of the past-- the original backstory of a 25 year-old film-- and a future that has yet to take place. There is only one direction: forward. That forward in turn only has one possible conclusion to bring its world full circle. So it is in this space that Salvation tries to grab attention in hopes that the journey itself is an event worth watching.

As the cornerstone of previous films, the character of John Connor is placed under a tremendous amount of weight, destined to be the savior of the human race. Salvation portrays him for the first time as a full-fledged adult, deep within the role he seemingly could never have avoided. Because of this his motivations and actions are set in stone, there is little to no room to grow and evolve as a person. The film tries to do so, but never at a level that can be seen as significant. That's why it's such a shame to see Christian Bale shoehorned into the role. He is such a strong actor and has proven time and again the myriad of archetypes he can bring life to, yet the story and script leaves this incarnation of John Connor little more than a locomotive on a track. Its all Bale can do to conduct the trip as best he can. For much of the film John Connor's leadership of the human resistance is surrounded by drawn-out exposition and extraneous sub-plots, framed by impressive but ultimately pointless action set pieces. It's disappointing that snippets of what make Terminator so fascinating as science fiction are glossed over in favor of enforcing what a bleak and destructive future is in store for humans.



The key to the film's overall interest lies in the parallel story of Marcus Wright, a former criminal reborn as a hybrid machine, and unaware of the fact. Had it focused on his journey, the story could have achieved so much more. Given his origin and how Wright discovers it, feelings border on disgust with how the marketing of Salvation chose to include it as a key plot point in advance materials and trailers, rather than allow it to be the incredible reveal it could have been. Thankfully Wright, played cooly and with thuggish charm by Sam Worthington, fulfills the role of alpha ass-kicker quite convincingly. His eventual pairing with apocalypse fledgling Kyle Reese (who is pivotal in setting up events from prior films-- but lets not get into that here) harkens back to the successful camaraderie of the earlier films seen with Reese's future self and the matriarchal Sarah Conner, and also young John Conner and the reprogrammed Terminator we all know and love. (Indeed, actor Anton Yelchin is able to play young Reese with an uncanny invocation of Michael Beihn.) Sadly with multiple plot points veering towards conversion, this partnership is short lived. There is a feeling of being shortchanged of Wright's personal quest, just when it becomes most compelling. Wright's eventual meeting with John Connor would seem to be that natural focal point, and in fact had the film waited until that moment to introduce John Connor-- alongside Wright's recognition of his true self-- so many aspects of the story would have been far more rewarding.

Where there is a sense that the first two-thirds of the movie have an idea of what they should be, they never really are able to solidify. Amazingly, Salvation wholeheartedly redeems itself in the third act. The final rundown knows exactly what it needs to be and delivers on multiple levels. As both a movie-goer and a Terminator fan it is... extremely gratifying. It is in the third act where Salvation becomes its most "Terminator" in style, substance, and stake, parlaying its overwrought and disjointed setup into a tight-paced and maniacal conclusion with perhaps one of the best payoffs any fan could have asked for. Imagining it is one thing, seeing it actually play out on screen is another. Surely in this space the formula for success from Salvation's predecessors was a looming influence and rightly so, else we all could have been left with a beleaguered farewell to a series that had run itself into the ground.

Salvation's conclusion and epilogue closes the door on what it introduced, though is able to add a small, final element that adds some light previously unseen. It's difficult to envision where the mythology can go from here, and if it is even necessary. What is left unexplored in the world of Terminator seems hardly enough to craft sustainable narrative, at least that which remains outside of a hardcore philosophical exploration of both its science and fiction. While a true genre fan could only dream of seeing such a thing, it is something Hollywood is not likely to provide. What the future holds for Terminator films is not unlike how they themselves portray it: a fine line between unknown and unavoidable.

District 9

Science Fiction from South Africa? Former CG animator Neill Blomkamp looks to bring us an interesting film with his South African homeland as a backdrop, hinting at some sort of alien internment with ominous social overtones. The trailer, in dead-serious documentary style, is a great set-up that whets the intellectual appetite with nary an explosion or transforming robot.

District 9 Trailer

Moon *UPDATED*

It's no secret that we love our science-fiction films to reflect actual science in their story. Unfortunately, these days "space films" or "technology films" are often mistaken for science-fiction. Real science fiction stories do not necessarily have to be set in space or involve any type of technology. Think about that for a while...

This debut film by director, Duncan Jones has been making the festival rounds and seems set for a wider release...sadly still the art house route, but I should be thankful this film is being distributed at all.

The story centers around Sam Rockwell's character, a contract employee working alone on the moon for a company that provides clean energy on Earth from resources sent from the moon. With his 3 year contract almost over, Rockwell's Sam Bell looks forward to returning home; that is when he discovers he is not alone. This encounter will heighten his sense of loneliness and push his grasp of reality to the breaking point when he is so close to leaving it all behind.

*Update*
Apple now has the trailer available in SD and HD versions. The official site has yet to go live, but you can sign up to be alerted when it does.

The film mixes a few familiar themes or concepts from past films, but the setting of the Moon is what makes it work. This isn't deep space. He can see home from his window. His family is an easy video call away, no lag time for communication. And this is exactly what makes the sense of isolation so much more intense. Just like the last hour of your work day can sometimes feel like the longest hour of your life, Sam Bell's two weeks might as well be an eternity.
Look for the film in theaters this summer.

J.J Abram's Star Trek

The new trailer for J.J. Abrams' re-imagining of the classic Star Trek series is certainly a sight to behold. Actually, it's quite an aural experience with the excellent score by Michael Giachinno doing most of the emotional conjuring backed up by the impressive imagery and select snippets of dialogue. As trailer's go, it is definitely one of the best seen this year.

I have been somewhat skeptical of this project, mainly because I just didn't see a need to go back to the early days of the crew from the television series we'd come to be familiar with these odd 40+ years (!!). However, the selection of J.J. Abrams was at least the first right decision the producers made. His attention to detail and love for the original material was well on display in his turn at the helm of the most recent Mission:Impossible. He brought teamwork to the franchise and at least a sense of espionage that had made the television series enjoyable.

And yet, some doubts remained. The trailer sets up nicely the challenge to a young James T. Kirk to join Starfleet and live up to his father's reputation, and gives a glimpse at the epic scale to the threat they will face. However, the trailer seems to focus on a few, key segments of the film. The crux of the first and part of the second act, I believe, will be the cadets' time at Starfleet Academy, of which only brief instances are shown. How will this part play out? I certainly don't want something resembling a big budget version of adolescent themed shows that pepper the airwaves these days. It will also a very difficult task to wrangle all the threads of the canon which, over various television series and films, has quite a few loose threads. My main caveat, however, was that the characters are imbued with a real life that we hadn't heard of yet without relying too heavily on trying to connect them to the familiar. I think the Star Wars Prequels was severely weighted down by Lucas' attempts to make sure that he drew a bright, center lane line from things you saw in the Original Trilogy to the Prequels (and vice-versa).



The dread began to set in when I read that we were going to see how the young Kirk reprogrammed the computer for the Kobayashi Maru test. That doesn't need to be seen; it's best left as the legend it is referred to in dialogue in Wrath of Khan.

Then there are the personal nitpicks such as the set design of the Enterprise bridge which I find to be a little too "advanced" for the time period it is supposed to be set in. It looks more advanced than the bridge of the Enterprise-D from "Next Gen". How about some real buttons, switches and dials guys? At least the sight of Sulu using a chrome throttle at the helm is reassuring.
In the end, I hope moments like the scene above won't seem forced. I can already see from the trailer that the well worn Star Trek plot device of (highlight to read) time travel is central to the film's story, but I do think seeing how our young cadets rise to the occasion at an hour of need will be quite stirring. Consider me cautiously optimistic.

Cloverfield

So yeah I bought into the hype machine and saw Cloverfield. It's really not that bad, I mean it's nothing spectacular in the realm of monster movies but it holds up pretty well considering the entire film is from a single point of view.

But you know, really could have used more monster. Lots of glimpses and destruction and stuff blowing up. But even the "good look" at the beast wasn't that good of a look. And after all the hoopla of what it would look like (honestly I can't believe I didn't see it beforehand, and I sure looked for it!), It was just okay. Storywise its very straightforward, by the numbers. Hits all the action movie beats, no switcheroos, no fake-outs, and that was a bit of a letdown considering all of the secrecy involved. The folks I saw it with were generally entertained but we surprisingly came up with the same idea for a way cooler ending. And -no- science whatsoever. No explanation of what, how, why, nothing. Me, I really like the sci in my sci-fi. Can't I get a little sumptin' sumptin'?

I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I felt the movie had a heavy overtone of dread. Not even sure why, maybe because the deaths are both on the mass scale and the up-close and personal. Outside of the plot of random and wanton destruction, I don't know if there was a metaphor involved or if there was I'm not thinking enough to make the connection. The handheld camera viewpoint leads to some intense scenes where the military lets go full bore, as a viewer this is impressive and even jarring. It's so close up and loud, one can only wonder what actual modern warzone life is like, no doubt terrifying outside of the realms of fiction. Coupled with the no-win scenario omnipresent through the course of the film and held to the very end, it's definitely not the feel-good film of the new year. I know that's a strange thing to say about a monster movie, but Cloverfield is not an average movie in many ways. Does that make it better? Not sure... even with the hook of the single camera and personal POV, there are definitely some areas of story that could have been stronger to make a crazy-awesome monster flic instead of just an eyebrow raiser.

In the end I wish the monster really did look like this.