Cloverfield presents itself as a chimera of distinct genres and as we all know, crossing different species does not work in the real world. Well, in the fictionalized world of Cinema theoretically it may be done but only if masterfully orchestrated by a talented director, not a pretentious one.
Dan Trachtenberg just cut and pasted "helped and imprisoned by a psychopath" (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Bad Boy Bubby, Misery, etc.) with "sheltering from an unknown menace and stick together" (The Divide, Evil Dead, etc.) and "aliens invading with a weak spot" (H.G. Well's War of the Worlds paraphernalia derivatives) without even bothering to stitch the different themes nor properly nor in whatever form.
As far as my experience goes and apart from movie genre analogies, when a script wants to grab everything for the sake of "surprising", just because "To surprise" is to be a "fantastic" director or writer, everything becomes predictable, boring, vain and volatile. Nothing seems to have mass or a tangible form. It becomes ridiculous unless it has stupendous performances, also not the case.
Some combinations are simply not congruent:
Hypothesis A) The Guy is a psychopath and the menace only exists in his mind - generally works;
Hypothesis B) The Guy is right but severely stressed and indeed there is a menace outside - generally works;
Hypothesis C) The Guy is a lunatic and there is indeed a menace outside and we've been "fooled" all the time (wasn't this movie supposed to be connected with "Cloverfield" at the first time?) by an elusive script which jumps from the 1st to the 2nd hypothesis to culminate on the fusion of both (wow) - it becomes rubbish if a movie pretends to be realistic or the director is a glutton of genres.
This piece of crap (pity for John Goodman because he has done a satisfactory work and he is a very talented actor) represents a Hollywood stereotype of movies made by directors "full of original ideas" who generate cheap "bombastic" dry firepower movies wrapped by a sparkling marketing and destined for ignorant audiences who will justify the profit of the movie by ephemerally paying its tickets on a one night debut.
Dan Trachtenberg just cut and pasted "helped and imprisoned by a psychopath" (Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Bad Boy Bubby, Misery, etc.) with "sheltering from an unknown menace and stick together" (The Divide, Evil Dead, etc.) and "aliens invading with a weak spot" (H.G. Well's War of the Worlds paraphernalia derivatives) without even bothering to stitch the different themes nor properly nor in whatever form.
As far as my experience goes and apart from movie genre analogies, when a script wants to grab everything for the sake of "surprising", just because "To surprise" is to be a "fantastic" director or writer, everything becomes predictable, boring, vain and volatile. Nothing seems to have mass or a tangible form. It becomes ridiculous unless it has stupendous performances, also not the case.
Some combinations are simply not congruent:
Hypothesis A) The Guy is a psychopath and the menace only exists in his mind - generally works;
Hypothesis B) The Guy is right but severely stressed and indeed there is a menace outside - generally works;
Hypothesis C) The Guy is a lunatic and there is indeed a menace outside and we've been "fooled" all the time (wasn't this movie supposed to be connected with "Cloverfield" at the first time?) by an elusive script which jumps from the 1st to the 2nd hypothesis to culminate on the fusion of both (wow) - it becomes rubbish if a movie pretends to be realistic or the director is a glutton of genres.
This piece of crap (pity for John Goodman because he has done a satisfactory work and he is a very talented actor) represents a Hollywood stereotype of movies made by directors "full of original ideas" who generate cheap "bombastic" dry firepower movies wrapped by a sparkling marketing and destined for ignorant audiences who will justify the profit of the movie by ephemerally paying its tickets on a one night debut.
