There is a genre of movie that has carved a small place in Hollywood using big characters. These characters tower over buildings, have titanic fights in the middle of cities and may even spew radioactive fire from their mouths. The giant monster movie genre has a special place in cinema and of course, among fans. With the help from Godzilla and King Kong, the genre climbed and effectively continues to live through them currently. But for a while the genre was dormant. For a few years, it was a long time before audiences saw giant monsters take center stage. Godzilla: Final Wars was released in 2004 and Peter Jackson’s King Kong was released in 2005. It was a while. But one movie did come out after those two which provided some giant monster nostalgia. Despite some huge speculation what this movie could be about, the consensus was that after some time, a giant monster would finally return to the big screens. That movie was Cloverfield. With a clever marketing campaign, it set fans in a craze. But once the movie came out, it didn’t do much for the giant monster movie genre. It gave back a familiar taste but not a feast.
Cloverfield did have a spectacular marketing campaign. It was sold as something mysterious. Fans knew ‘something’ was there. A lot did point to a giant monster. But promos kept a lot in the dark. In fact, it’s a bit refreshing to look back at the teasers to see how to properly promote a movie given that many modern trailers give out the whole premise of the movie. But forcing fans to be in the dark and play with their own imagination to come up with what could be the culprit behind Cloverfield, was fun. It kept fans interested and the only way fans could discover what it was, they had to go watch it. That style of marketing treated the giant monster as a mysterious presence, a mysterious force which was different. So, the movie helped in that sense.
However, this was the opportunity for the giant monster movie genre to make a return. Of course, any movie like this will be in the shadow of Godzilla. It just comes with it. It did do a few things different but since Cloverfield was a giant monster movie at the surface, there was expectation for it to deliver. It came a little short. Much of the monster material was background. Sometimes just background noise. Clover – as fans have dubbed the monster – did make an impact on the film but he wasn’t seen much. Wasn’t interacted with much. Wasn’t confronted much. No heavy speculation. He was just an obstacle that the main characters had to move around. Had to avoid. In fact, Clover wasn’t seen much at all. Fans point out that Godzilla (2014) did not give the King of Monster much screen time but Clover was used very similarly. And when Clover was seen, he was quickly taken away. Felt like he was a side character, a supporting character in his own movie.
The movie that fans effectively got instead was a light romance movie. The movie was shot in a found film style which meant it was filmed through one single camera that existed in the movie. That leaves some interesting avenues to cover. The main group could have documented the military making plans to take out Clover. They could have followed one solider. Maybe even a journalist that has some theories on what the monster is and where it came from. A marine biologist that has some speculation that Clover came from the depths. An astronomer that believes Clover came from space. But instead of documenting someone or some people that could have added to the lore of Clover, the main group followed the main character so he could retrieve his girlfriend from a building that Clover damaged. Instead of giving a monster movie a political thriller or a conspiracy thriller subgenre, it felt the monster movie genre was in fact the subgenre to a romantic movie. Again, this was a time where giant monster movies were dormant. Where a movie like that could come to the forefront and be welcomed pretty easily because cinema hadn’t seen a movie like it in a while. But instead, it was a genre that was forced to take a backseat to highlight a weak love story plotline. There were so many other ways to use that style of filming to not only film the monster but to add to it’s lore. Since the camera is in fact a real camera in the movie, that grounds the movie. So, hearing and seeing more of the conspiracy and reaction to Clover would have felt real. But, there was a romantic storyline that took center place which overshadowed what could have been a fresh and unique giant monster movie.
Cloverfield had some expectations going into it despite the marketing keeping majority of the details secret. But one of the main elements audiences were looking at was in fact the giant monster. Since Cloverfield came out, Clover has taken on a little life of his own but still is in the large shadows of Godzilla and King Kong. If the movie was able to stress the grandeur of a giant monster, this film would have made a larger impact on the genre. But instead it treated Clover as something that lingered in the background. A giant monster was the secondary plot in a giant monster movie where speculating about it through a found footage frame would have been lots more captivating and refreshing. Instead, fans got something that failed the genre.
