Cloverfield, the next Snakes on a Plane?

J.J. Abrams' upcoming Cloverfield has internet fans running in circles with speculation and hype, but I have to question, is all this hype really going to amount to anything? I think we've all seen this kind of fanboy anticipation before with the pre-release buzz surrounding Snakes on a Plane, and what did that amount to? We got a rather enjoyable B-Movie, but nothing that resembled the film that the fanboyism would lead you to believe Snakes was. I'm sure there's some people out there who have those Snakes on a Plane T-shirts stuffed away in the back of their closet, like a dirty little secret.

Now, I'm not trying to rag on Snakes, because as I've said, it was an enjoyable film. Nor am I trying to say that Cloverfield is going to be crap, that's really not the point of what I'm getting at here. The point is that all this buzz and hype doesn't necessarily translate into a good movie experience, and that a lot of people might be letting themselves in for some serious disappointment. Think about it.

Lets take a look at it from a more skeptical frame of mind for a moment, shall we? Everyone's excited because of J.J. Abrams, but his last film outing was the mediocre Mission: Impossible III. Abrams isn't involved with Cloverfield as writer or director, he's only the producer, so I'm not sure we can consider him a mark of quality here. Drew Goddard is the sole writer, and he's the guy who's had the honour of being executive story editor, and writer, on the 5th season of Angel, which was quite frankly an altogether awful season, marked by some of the most awful writing the show had ever seen.

Matt Reeves is directing Cloverfield, a man with a whole five episodes of Felicity under his belt! Not to mention, in the last 5 years, he's directed a whopping 2 episodes, one in 2003 and one in 2006. Amazing workhorse of a director there, and he's an accomplished writer too, with such films as Under Siege 2 and The Pallbearer to his credit. If I was to pull my cynic hat on completely, I'd say that all this inventive viral marketing is just making up for the complete lack of talent involved, and the film couldn't pull an audience on it's own merits.

Seriously though, I don't think the film is going to be crap and I'm eager to see it, so I'll be right there in the cinema on the first day of release when it comes out. But people should seriously take a step back, if it's going to be a good film, then watch it when it comes out without any gloriously high expectations, and let the film itself convince you that it's good, not all this buzz with secret videos, myspace pages and who knows what other kind of marketing schemes! Let the film speak for itself.

I will say this though, I think the people behind the trailer have done the right thing, and I would seriously hope that trailers in future take a note from Cloverfield's book. Too many films have trailers that simply spell out every plot element, show clips from almost every scene, and a lot of the time, completely ruin a lot of surprises. Lately, I've even been avoiding some trailers, as I really prefer to know as little as possible about a film as I can before seeing it. Lots of foreign films that have been shown locally I've walked into without having seen a single trailer for, and in some cases, not even knowing a basic plot! Which leads me to me final point...

Do you really want to know about every facet of the film before you see it? All those people who are digging for clues about Cloverfield, analyising the trailers, and trying to have it all figured out before 1-18-08, would you not be better off leaving something for when you actually see the film?