'Cloverfield'

Rating:

BY JAN STUART | jan.stuart@newsday.com

January 18, 2008

New York City has enjoyed a period of relative tranquillity since the 9/11 attacks, but for the occasional kerfuffle prompted by a visiting Iranian president, a Republican National Convention or a Christo installation in Central Park. Crime has gone down, property values (until lately) have gone up and, once a year each January, college students have ridden the subway in their underwear without provoking any noticeable consternation from their fellow passengers.

What a difference a month makes.

It's been about that long since Will Smith fended off zombies in a post-apocalypse Manhattan. And now, barely three weeks into the New Year, a giant monster is slamming the Chrysler Building and bowling the Statue of Liberty's head down the streets of lower Manhattan.

"Cloverfield" is here to assure us that, should such a dark day ever arrive, there will be at least one meathead in the crowd who will throw caution to the wind and record the entire event for posterity.

Taking a page from "The Blair Witch Project," in which the mysterious demise of a student film crew is captured by its own camera equipment, "Cloverfield" memorializes a deadly monster invasion through the eye of a camcorder.

This was hardly the job that the neophyte cameraman, a dedicatedly thickheaded party dude named Hudson, aka Hud (T.J. Miller), had signed on for. The film's 20-minute preliminary event is a going-away celebration for Hud's best buddy, Rob (Michael Stahl-David), who is leaving New York to take a job in Japan, the land that once outsourced Godzilla and other reptilian behemoths to America.

Hud busily extorts video testimonials from Rob's nearest and dearest, who are not above dishing about the honoree's relationship with the girl he's leaving behind, Beth (Odette Yustman). It is in the middle of one such searching discussion that an earthquake-like rumble sends the revelers spilling out into the streets of lower Manhattan, which are being ravaged by a disgruntled monster presumably not on the guest list.

As Rob escapes across the Brooklyn Bridge with a small band that includes his brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and the wry odd-duck Marlena (the appealing Lizzy Caplan), the unswervable Hud records the amassing devastation.

Written with a breezy Gen-X informality by Drew Goddard, "Cloverfield" operates in some weird middle plane of fantasy and reality that exploits the happenings of Sept. 11, 2001, and seems utterly oblivious to them at the same time. (Did New Yorkers loot electronics stores as the World Trade Center went down? I don't think so.) The shaky video camera perspective is alternately involving and irritating, but director Matt Reeves keeps the carnival of wreckage spinning at a brisk clip. At a tight 84 minutes, "Cloverfield" delivers more bang for your buck than "I Am Legend" or "The Mist," minus the preachy gravitas of the former and the glib cynicism of the latter.

The film's primary, crater-sized hole lies in the amoral, show-must-go-on single-mindedness of Hud, who keeps that camera whirring come hell or high water. One wishes one could jump through the screen, Buster Keaton-like, grab it from his hands and dump the thing in the East River. But compassion requires us to give a little extra rope to a guy whose nickname, spelled backward, is duh.

CLOVERFIELD (PG-13). A big monster pulls the plug on a rollicking loft party and does a number on New York City's most prized architectural possessions. Matt Reeves' technically expert wrecking-ball of a movie keeps the apocalyptic thrills churning, despite the idiotic camcorder perspective a la "The Blair Witch Project." 1:23 (violence, terror and disturbing images). At area theaters.