Cloverfield 2

(SPOILER ALERT!)

(Updated post)

Having just watched Cloverfield -the film that finally outdid September 11 for the biggest Big-Bada-Boom. (Who would have thought real world events would out-Hollywood Hollywood itself?)- this film has inspired me to plot out, with disconcerting ease, the script outline that will be Cloverfield 2...

• Cloverfield 2 will have you experience the same event, with the same handycam mode, but through the eyes of a soldier via a helmet cam. If you notice in the first movie all the marines have cameras on their helmets. (Ha!)
  
• The movie will begin at the start of the emergency. The helmet cam buzzes to life with your best mate checking your cam.
  
• The captain tells you to look lively and explains the shit going down in NYC right now. (The captain is a nasty piece of work, and despises you) You're scrambling into a chopper as this is happening. Your camera will be faulty, and will turn off and on with strong blows to the head. This will allow the filmmakers to cut out bits of the movie that will drag.
  
• You (the cameraman) will have another stupid camera-based name like Zoom, or Andy (as in "Andy Cam"- geddit?) and you will be part of a 12 man unit assigned to the NYC shit storm.
  
• As the main character you'll have several cross-over points to the original story with the original cast, and eventually carry the story further than the previous.
• There'll be more focus on the smaller bugs in the sequel, and the extra number in your team will be used to have more gruesome deaths and with extended visceral action. (Think 'Aliens').
• Since the first one was a very romance-based quest, this one will be much more actiony, and lots more room for comedy as well. Then motivation will be to get back to your girlfriend (who is constantly calling you- your mobile phone and intercom will be crucial story drivers in this sequel).
• The conversations you'll have with your sexy, but dumb girlfriend will be hilarious and provide much needed comedy relief. He will constantly placate her and put up with her hounding because he's so horny for her.
  
• You'll act as part of a concerted well-organized military force until the Captain dies early on- the Creature lands its paw directly on him- and this fragments the team.
  
• The ground force will be shattered and bewildered until the tanks roll in -this is where you get your mojo back and hitch a ride on the back of a tank (you'll pass Rob, Hud, and the others in the street- glancing at them briefly) to make a heroic bid to destroy the Creature head-on. This will have a small effect, but mostly just get the Creature's attention, at which time it starts playing Whack-A-Tank and begins throwing the other tanks around. (The one you rode in on will be thrown into the big tv screen at Times Square making a very satisfying explosion -with yet more way-too-obvious product placement advertising).
• The Creature approaches and then stops straight over you. You panic, but then see a group of soldiers with RPGs (Rocket-Propelled Grenade launchers) arrive. They fire at the beast while it is directly over you. It seems to do incredible damage, because the monster rears back and screams. Its feet land with a thunderous boom and everyone is knocked to the ground.
• Your teammates will think that its dying as it screams again, twisting its head. Just as the RPG guys reload (with the Creature over you) you'll be rained on by bugs (which will be filmed by a news reporter -which is the footage that was seen in the first movie) and you'll need to run and fight your way to safety into an underground car park (destroying several beautiful cars in the process). It's bug mayhem.
  
• Scattered you'll get the message to regroup at an emergency head quarters where they've set up a make-shift hospital (re: first movie). One of your buddies will have lost his hand to the bugs and is bleeding badly.
  
• Your remaining team mates (7 of them, including stumpy) will head down a sewer and shoot their way to the meeting point. There'll be bugs galore, and after a major shoot out three of your team mates will be bitten. Your handless buddy will look like shit, and will explode with wriggling larvae- which are already bursting out with small claws. Your unit treads on them all, then look at each other knowing what will become of the bitten and double-time it to the hospital with the screeches of more bugs on your tail.
  
• You'll be relatively safe, then glance up and see a solitary bug lunge at your head knocking the camera to black.
  
• Your face is the first thing the camera sees again. You just fixed it (and re-established who you are to the audience). There'll be a comment here about how that last bug was killed.
  
• You put your helmet on and see yourselves in the emergency HQ/hospital. The quarantine boys in plastic blue uniforms see the bites on your buddies and tell you to take them to the quarantine area. They're asking a barrage of questions: "When were you bitten?", "How long ago?", etc.
• They never make it. One explodes along a corridor wall. You and your buddies start squashing the bugs and the quarantine boys yell at you to stop. They open a cooler room door and drag the body bits in there as the other quarantine boys take the other two away.
  
• You glance in to the cooler room and see layers of mutilated corpses. In amongst them are frozen smaller bugs from the bodies- twitching, fighting the cold.
  
• On the way back you hear someone screams, "Bite!" You see Marlena being taken to quarantine and watch her explode much more clearly than the first movie. Rob, Hud and Lily pass you, panicking.
• (UPDATE: You see another person in quarantine that hasn't been bitten, but is horribly mutated. You ask: "What happened to her?" No-one knows. She mutates larger, fights off some troops, and runs away. (Her name is Jamie Lascano- you'll hear more about her in the third movie) -see my post below)
  
• You report to the commander. He's giving orders- talking about the final round of air strikes, and the evacuation of the citizens and military for the Hammer Down Protocol.
• A hot female lab-coated biologist is with him and begins talking about the Creature's regenerative powers.
  
• There'll be some dialog here about where the Creature came from and what it's weaknesses are. (My guess is it fell to Earth. (UPDATE: This is wrong, it's a sea creature from Earth) And it's weakness could be the kind of air it breathes- the puffers on the sides of its mouth are to siphon nitrogen from the air and convert it to a nitrogen-based highly explosive gas- which it breathes).
  
• The plan is to get to the safe zone and initiate Hammer Down (a mini-nuke).
• Bugs will then fall out of the roof and get the party started again.
  
• You'll be chased through the building. The way to the roof will be blocked. Another way will need to be taken- through the stairwell and then through a vacated floors. The Creature will look into your floor with its huge eye and yell- just to establish its presence for an upcoming scene).
  
• You'll run out of bullets half-way through the vacated floor and be down to your pistol and a lead pipe.
  
• (You may also meet at this point a crazy French film-maker who asks you a bunch of strange questions- his entire quirky movie will be a short film in the special edition dvd).
  
• You, the captain, the hottie and your two buddies reach the building's roof- followed by the most amount of bugs you have seen so far. You all barricade the final door as bugs gnaw at the other side.
  
• The Cloverfield monster walks right past you as a wave of air strikes screech overhead. Boom!
  
• You see the chopper and hail it down. As the chopper approaches you'll get to see the creature almost dying -like you saw in the first movie from chopper- and at the last second you will see it attack Hud's chopper. The Creature will turn to you, huffing, and approach, just as the bugs get through your barricade and attack. One of your mates dies- swarmed by bugs.
  
• You hold the bugs off as the others get on. The creature approaches, the chopper starts taking off, you're still on the roof gunning and clubbing bugs. Your best mate in the chopper calls for you- C'mon! There is a razor-thin escape as the bugs leap to attack your chopper, just as you leap over the building's edge to grab it's landing leg. A bug also leaps and grabs your leg! Just as you grab the chopper, the Cloverfield monster hurtles into the building you were on, which you can see perfectly from your aerial perspective, and takes out all the bugs that have just been attacking you for the last 10 mins (except for the bug on your leg).
• The bug on your leg runs up your body and into the chopper causing pandemonium inside the cabin (remember: you're still hanging from the landing beam). The rogue bug attacks the pilot and in the process the chopper is getting closer to the ground (Central Park). It gets closer and closer to the ground as gunfire goes off in the cabin. The commander divesout over you, yelling "abandon vehicle", landing in the trees. You let go soon after and watch the helicopter crash.
  
• You go over and rescue the hottie. And rescue a bag of munitions for good measure. The pilot is dead, and your best mate is trapped in his seat and pleads for you to help him. He has bite marks all over him. You point the gun at him. The hottie tells you- don't. But your mate begs you to kill him. You see the burning of the engine and let the explosion take care of him for you. The hottie (the bag of munitions) and you dive to safety.
• After a quick chat with the hottie for more exposition about how to kill the monster, you find the commander wounded.
  
• The Cloverfield monster limps towards you into Central Park, but stops short at another helicopter crash. It stops right over Hud and bites him in two. We see it in clear and gruesome detail.
  
• You help the commander get to a protected safe spot, hottie behind you. He apologises to the other two- I gotta do this -and radios in to initiate Hammer Down. They look over and see the creature limp away.
  
• You tell the commander to wait, and give you the chance to plant an explosive inside the creature's puffer glands. He tells you it's no use, he's going to initiate Hammer Down regardless. Then you make a 9-11 reference and tell him that this city has seen its share of devastation, you just need five minutes. He tells you you've got two- Go!
• You actually climb up the Creature's body, onto it's head (your girlfriend calls at this time, but you ignore it) and you cut into it's puffer gland- sticking your hand with the explosive into it. The Creature shakes you off (to a safe distance) and you land in the lake. The screen goes to black.
  
• The cam blitzes back to life- You see yourself crawling out onto the shore with the detonator in your hand. And the creature in the distance. Breathing heavily you say something witty before clicking the detonator. The Creature goes boom, and the explosion expands out in all directions. The shock wave hits you and the screen goes to black again.
• It comes to life seeing your blackened face. "There ya go. (exhausted) Gotta keep rolling..." You put your helmet on and walk towards the Creature's ground zero. Then a piece of meat falls near you. Then another. And suddenly it's raining meat- ala the exploding whale- (American ingenuity at its best).
  
• You run for cover which just happens to be the collapsed bridge Rod and Beth are now trapped under. When the meat rain stops you hear a whimper and realized someone's trapped under there. You rescue the two- they're okay, but their camera's busted.
  
• Your phone rings and it's your girlfriend. We hear him try to explain his way out of why he didn't answer her last call when she just tried ringing him (he was on the Creature at the time). Credits roll over this conversation.
• (UPDATE) After the credits have rolled we look over to see a fallen building from the Creature's blast. From out of the rubble a now enormous Jamie-Monster gets to its feet, gives a big Godzilla roar to the sky and disappears into the streets of Manhattan. (For an explanation to this read my post below)
  

And that, in ridiculous detail, is what I think will happen in the sequel. :)

Now a short review...

Cloverfield, for me, was the B-movie I never knew I was waiting for all my life. As much as I realise it's bad, (paradoxically) I can't fault it for being everything I want it to be. It's an extra-cheesey creature romp set in the only place it can be set in- New York- and it is the closest thing I've come to getting a computer game experience on the big screen. To break it down: Blair Witch + Godzilla = Brilliant Rubbish. Recycled rubbish at that. Cloverfield is so perfectly generic and profoundly cliched that there's a respect I am going to have to give to it when I call it a modern-day classic. And yet, at the same time, it's completely disposable. I hate myself for loving it as much as I do, but I can't help but love it. What a fun ride.

Personally, I can't wait for the slew of home-made Cloverfield short films that will be done by all the Star Wars fans that now have nothing to do. Go on, fellas. You know you want to.

M