I apologize for the harshness of this post. It is an adaptation, and I’ll clean it up for public consumption.. Strap yourself in. The hyper dragon is … NOT happy about this one. About the movie that is .. Cloverfield

Okay, first thing’s first. I was not scared for one, single moment. I am not exaggerating when I say this. NOTHING about this movie is scary. It’s as if the writers sat down with a handful of scary movie statistics and mushed them ALL into this movie. I am serious! We have seen EVERY SINGLE aspect of this movie in several movies. Furthermore, there are some BIG TIME logic glitches.

So, let’s talk about the characters.

* We have.. jack@$$ (younger?) brother.. mid 20’s.. perhaps? He’s a wise@$$, hip young dude with a hot girlfriend, bla bla bla. Something out of a Cooler “Friends”

* We have the girlfriend. Uuber responsible, hot chic.. maybe mid 20’s..

* Okay, (older?) brother.. I’d say.. mid to late 20’s. He’s .. somehow.. the Vice President. Of…. ? ? Company X that’s sending him to Japan for, like, a year or something.. Again. Hip, tussled hair, suit and tie, looks very metro.. Bla bla bla.

* Older Brother’s love interest. “Boo hoo you didn’t call me for a week, so I started bangin’ this dude, and I’m bringing him to your going away party..” WTF, biznatch? and what the [car horn] are you wearing? Clearly the designer of her dress lost on Project Runway.

* Okay, retarded buddy. Godda have one. He wasn’t a jock.. He wasn’t a nerd.. He was just.. a dipshiznet.. maybe mid 20’s? Too stupid to tell. Naturally, *HE* holds the camera. Now the writers try to capture humor through his ironic innocence.. “What was THAT?!” she cries, “Something terrible” he pants. Audience titters. Anyway.. He films butts and boobies and NEVER holds the camera steady.

AND FINALLY

* Dimwad’s goth love interest. She’s got some great lines, and she’s the one character I enjoyed. Didn’t CARE about, by ANY stretch of the imagination.. but enjoyed.

We open with 20 some minutes of choppy filming at this hip young stud’s going away party. Every character is very thoroughly introduced, every sub plot and drama point is carefully driven into the audience’s skulls. They make ABSOLUTE sure that every last one of us knows Who [duck noise]ed whom, who is [elephant bellowing] whom, who wants to [gunshot] whom, and Look! Sleeping drunk chick’s titties. Giggling.

Okay. Now that we’ve all lost interest in the movie. Boom. All hell breaks loose. If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ve seen this scene. Seriously.. lots of screaming, lots of yelling, brief glimpse of something terrible.. More screaming. More yelling.. Main characters start making stupid decisions.

From this point on, I’m gonna be dropping spoilers, so, stop reading if you are looking forward to a lobotomy.

Goth girl separated from group, returns all shocked. “It’s eating people”

Giant monster came in by sea, so the military orders everyone to evacuate Anyone wanna guess the route by which civilians are ordered to escape? Anyone? Anyone? Yes, Escape the giant sea monster by crossing the [fart noise] bridge. MC’s love interest (who left the party with her [donkeybraying]buddy) calls on cell phone “I’m in my apartment, I’m hurt, I can’t move, I’m bleeding. waah waah waah” And guess what happens next! The battery dies Dun dun DUUUUN. Younger brother gets slaughtered when the bridge goes out. Big [falling pots and pans] surprise. Nobody [car crash] cares.

Okay into electronics store where I’ll go ahead and take a new, fresh, fully charged battery for my Nokia. Yes.. Nokia apparently funded this turd burger, and apparently you can go to your local Circuit City and but a fully carged Nokia phone battery right next to the Golley gosh darn Tripple A’s!

Oh, by the way, big terrible thing is dropping hoards of little monster spawns that are eating people.

So, let’s listen to the VOICE MAIL that Chicky-Poo left. Yes! She was kind enough to call back and leave a voice message “in case the audience didn’t get what you’re gonna do. I’m in my apartment, bleeding and I can’t move. Please see past my fashion fauxpas and save me. Why isn’t my new [goose honk]buddy helping me? I don’t know he’s evaporated from the script!”

Okay, so young stud gets the idea to RUN to save his girlfriend.. This is where I had to leave the auditorium and nearly puke the first time. Motion sickness. No lie, ladies and gentlemen. I left the freakin auditorium to toss my cookies because I was motion sick. Remember Dimwad is still holding the camera. When I come back, they’ve made it to the subway. Mom calls.. in the subway. On the cellphone. She manages to get through. City’s pretty much destroyed. No cell towers.. Mommy has special cell phone powers. She’s a bloody Third Waver. Anyway. Stud is all, “Mommy, my brother’s dead. Boo Hoo. Cause the audience may have forgotten to care, so I thought I’d remind them. Look, Crying.”

HEY look! We can still… RUN to save love interest (who’s been bleeding to death for.. what.. 30 minutes now?) WEE!! Gee sure is dark. DUR camera has a light on it.. WEEE! Gee there’s a weird noise.. DURRR Camera has Night vision. Guess what we see when we turn it on?!

YAAAAY Hoardlings!!!!

They attack, we HOPE they’ll kill a few of them, but they only chew on the idiot and goth chick a bit. Durrr.. I wonder if that bite’s gonna do anything? Let’s make sure the idiot mentions “Oh, it’s nothing.. it’s just a BITE! Dur dur dur hat go on foot dur!”

So, they get topside.. there’s the military, makeshift clinic, goth gets DIZZY.. Durrrr what’s coming next?

Military:” Into the clinic.” Stud: “No, I MUST save my girlfriend.” Goth chick sez, “I feel sick, let me cry some blood and then pop. literally … pop..” And, thus ends that plot line. Yes, We NEVER hear AGAIN about any of the bite’s effects.. even though the moron got chomped too. Never get to see HIM pop.. no..

Back to saving girlfriend! Look! A military dude is letting them go do that.. Topside again.. Empty studly cab kinda plodding by.. *ahem* apparently monsters only like people meat cause they LEFT the [nickering] HORSE!!!! The dead driver is even THERE!! Double Tea EFF?!

Anyway. there’s the apartment building.. leaning against it’s neighbor. We screwed. We’ll never get to her now. I know! Let’s go UP the good building, cross onto the roof of the toppled building, and go down to her apartment. great plan. 35 stories up the stairs… no cramps… no real panting… 20-year-old yuppies sure are fit.

So they cross to other building, go down to apartment and there she is.. impaled on rebar.. Fortunately her heart seems to be located on the WRONG [heartbeat noise] SIDE OF HER CHEST!!!!! cause she’s still freakin’ alive!!!! All they have to do is pull her off the rebar and she’ll be fully refilled with blood and sprinting in the next scene. Oh, yeah, and the lung apparently healed itself as well. She’s like Claire.. From Heroes… Crossover?

Okay, SO enter new character. We have the (bitten?) idiot, dead bro’s girlfriend (she stopped mourning in the scene after he was squashed) V.P. older bro, and ex-impaled love interest who.. was smart enough to COMPLETELY change clothes before impaling herself on rebar in her own apartment.

Oh yes! YES. She is in a WHOLLY different outfit! Head to toe new clothes! *tremble*

Okay.. so, run run run, make it back to the military who have some helicopters just in time to evac. Dead dude’s girlfriend is in the first chopper and flys away.. maybe lives, but then something comes flying down from the monster which is now, like, two blocks away. maybe it’s her chopper.. I don’t care.

The other three in the second chopper.. fly fly fly.. there it is, we’re flying along side it- not away from it. In fact, from the angles and motion, it looks like we’re trying to orbit it. No matter, there is a stealth bomber. It drops some bomb that blow up. Let’s feel confident before it knocks us out of the sky. And we crash. all the MC’s live, the military pilots both die..

Don’t worry, idiot FINALLY gets chomped when they all get out of the chopper. YAAAAY Down the hatch vore scene. Vores unite. it’s crunchy, but apparently monster doesn’t like the sweet sweet taste of imbecile, cause it spits out him AND the camera. We get several seconds of dead idiot and auto focus.. Ooh artsy!

Well, the hero and remaining chic grab the camera and hide under a kinda bridge thingy. “Let’s make one final heartfelt recording,” he says, “I love you Mommie.” bombs go off. Off camera, “I love you.” More bombs.

Credits.

So.. scary movie clichés: Giant, semianthropomorphic, man (but not horse) eating monster. hoards of smaller, faster spidery monsters with bites that turn you into a time delay blood bomb. Lots of shaking cameras and screaming. Implied government conspiracy / [explosion]up.. or is it a monster from the deep? Young people making decisions. Strobe scenes (no schiznet). Night vision scene, surprise, monsters that were waiting for the IR to some on before they attacked. Stupid military that doesn’t care about young love (oh, wait, they do). AND a no-closure ending. Shiznet, all we need are some zombies and a satanic cult, and it would be perfect.

It’s very loud, nauseating to watch, and if you’ve seen three horror movies, you’ve seen this one. Please, take my advise. Just stay home and give yourself a few papercuts. You’ll get MUCH more out of your evening that way.

On the positive side.. I saw it at the Alamo Draft House. The “Once Upon a Time In Mexico”- spicy chicken salad with Jalapeño vinaigrette, is fantastic!