Reviews
Cloverfield and Underdog
With increasing numbers of films flooding our cinemas, opening weekend box office takings have become increasingly important in determining the success of a feature. So it's no surprise that the film companies spend hundreds of millions of pounds every year, creating slickly edited trailers, eye-catching posters and enticing television adverts to lure us to the multiplexes.
Cloverfield cleverly bucked the trend, employing a brilliant conceived viral marketing campaign to whip up hype for the low-budget monster movie. Intriguing, anonymous teaser trailers began to infiltrate the internet six months, showing amateur footage of a farewell party, which is interrupted by a devastating attack on New York, resulting in the head of the Statue of Liberty crashing through the city streets.
In this increasingly web-savvy age, when every whisper is shared on blogs, interest in this mysterious film mushroomed, yet Cloverfield maintained a veil of secrecy over the plot and the monster responsible for the earth-shaking carnage.
Shot predominantly on handheld cameras, Matt Reeves's film centres on Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David), who is preparing to leave behind his brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and good friends to live in Japan.
One such buddy, Hud (T.J.Miller), agrees to document festivities at the leaving party on a camcorder, gathering testimonies from Rob's girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas), sexy Marlena (Lizzy Caplan) and Beth (Odette Yustman), the object of Rob's affections.
Celebrations are rocked by a huge explosion. Panic grips the city and Rob and his chums become embroiled in a fight for survival, hiding from an unspeakable threat. Hud dutifully documents everything with his camera ("People are gonna want to know how it all went down") as the race for survival continues above and below ground.
Cloverfield almost lives up to the hype. Director Reeves delivers some thrilling set pieces including a terrifying encounter with beasties in the subway tunnels, filmed using the camcorder's infra-red mode, and a nail-biting rescue from a high-rise apartment. Scenes of the monster's rampage are similarly impressive with a nice jump out of your seat scare in the closing minutes.
Shooting the film from the perspective of the survivors, like The Blair Witch Project, sustains the tension, although some audiences might feel a little motion sick because of the constant camera movement. Performances from the cast are believable, screaming at appropriate moments as they struggle to come to terms with their predicament. The script is riddled with implausibilities. The camcorder's battery lasts a surprisingly long time. Indeed, it's nothing short of a miracle that the tape survives at all. Hud manages to capture incredible footage when any sane human being would be fleeing for their life and it's rather convenient that a soldier breaks protocol to tell Rob where to rendezvous to escape the city by helicopter (providing the second half of the film with its dramatic arc). However, if you're willing to accept a hideous behemoth reducing the Big Apple to rubble, then no suspension of disbelief is too great.
Dogs have accomplished remarkable feats of bravery, daring and affection in darkened cinema theatres. The eternally youthful Lassie barked defiantly in the face of danger, warning her owners of impending disaster.
A plucky mongrel called Old Yeller famously helped a young boy to oversee the family ranch before a Labrador and English Bull Terrier embarked on an Incredible Journey.
A pack of huskies risked life and tail to save their owner from frostbite in Eight Below and more recently, a plucky German Shepherd kept Will Smith company in I Am Legend's post-apocalyptic future. So it was almost inevitable that man's best friend would don a cape à la Superman and save mankind from gnarly tricksters and thieves.
Based on the 1960s animated series, Underdog is a lively adventure about a supercharged beagle, with a nose for trouble and a desire to save the citizens of Capitol City from a mad scientist and his lumbering henchman. Frederik Du Chau's film revives the classic catchphrase "There's no need to fear, Underdog is here!" marrying nostalgia with state-of-the-art special effects to allow the animals to converse in a Babe-style.
The eponymous hero is a police sniffer dog, who inadvertently falls into the clutches of maniacal Dr Simon Barsinister (Peter Dinklage) and his dim-witted lackey Cad (Patrick Warburton). The mutt escapes only to be drenched in the doctor's experimental serums, which invest the pooch with supercanine strength and speed . . . and the ability to talk.
Discovered walking the streets by kind security guard Dan Unger (James Belushi), the dog is re-christened Shoeshine by Dan's rebellious teenage son Jack (Alex Neuberger), who becomes the first person to discover the beagle's special talents.
The youngster suggests Shoeshine (voiced by Jason Lee) use his incredible powers for good, clad in a natty knitted costume. As Underdog's reputation soars, Dr Barsinister and Cad scheme to capture the hound and steal his DNA, then genetically engineer an army of subservient dogs with which to demand a £1m ransom from the mayor.
Will Jack and his pet save the day?
Underdog isn't the finest pedigree family film - the plot is threadbare, even at 81 minutes - but there are sufficient slapstick interludes to keep younger audiences entertained, like when Shoeshine accidentally wrecks the Ungers' home and Dan walks in to find a gloopy brown substance smeared on the kitchen cupboards.
"This better be chilli!" he bellows.
The father/son relationship begins with animosity - "All he does is eat, sleep and poop!" Jack whines when he first takes charge of Shoeshine; "Well then, the two of you have a lot in common," retorts Dan - and mellows into mawkish sentiment.
Dinklage and Warburton throw subtlety to the wind in their portrayal of the comic book villains while the escapades of the four-legged cast are more interesting than the owners, right down to the cute if obvious homage to Lady and the Tramp.
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