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What's great about Cloverfield is that it is supremely self-aware. On an emotional and narrative level, Reeves excels at exploiting each of these characters' strengths and faults, in the most classical Hollywood manner. And it was very wise of him to put the camera in the hands of the guy least prepared to carry that responsibility.
T.J. Miller's doofus is the frat guy everybody loves. He's well-intentioned and ill-equipped. He the muscle, the guy with a heart of gold, the dude you want around because he makes everyone smile and laugh.
If the movie occasionally seems to lag or digress, it is usually because T.J.'s sweet Hud has turned the camera away from the havoc the monster is wreaking to capture a brief poetic moment of his out-of-his-league love interest, Marlena (Lizzy Caplan).
On a formal level, Reeves elevates this picture over and over again, repeatedly using the first-person, hand-held technique to his advantage. There's a moment late in the film where Hud drops the camera. It settles on its side, and the auto focus racks in and out, unable to settle on the object in the distance or the blade of grass right in front of it. It is a moment that made me laugh out loud; the sheer audacity of such a move is admirable. After all, Reeves didn't have to do that, the audience wouldn't have thought, "Hey, what about the auto focus?!" On the contrary, Reeves gives us this little technical treat to remind viewers that not only are they watching a movie, they are watching a movie as it occurs, as it is being recorded - this is "real", this is "now".
The most satisfying surprise, the truly admirable aspect of this picture, is hinted at early in the film, explored subtly throughout, and brought home with expert subtly in the final moments. It turns out the tape possessing opening shots of Rob and Beth was still in the camera, the romantic day has been recorded over. Doh! But in the film's final moments, when the camera is reportedly recovered by the military in post-monster Central Park, we see Rob and Beth finally made it to Coney Island, and they are exceedingly happy and content. So, while everyone dies in the movie, at the hands of the monster, the memory of Rob and Beth is made immortal on this intimate home video.
It is a cinematic moment par excellence, something that even Brian De Palma ought to be envious of. Reeves manages to turn this pulpy monster movie into something knocking on the door of transcendence.
There is little, if any, self-reflexivity or genre stretching in Rambo. On the contrary, Sylvester Stallone takes his rickety-ass riverboat downstream, back to 1979, and builds a picture as sturdy and streamlined as an old Chevy Camaro. It is a model of conservative screenwriting structure.
The picture opens and we see Rambo, now old, doing Rambo type shit. He fishes with a bow and arrow, he forges metal, he grunts. He is Man. He does Man things in a Manly way.
When some Christian missionaries show up begging him to take them upriver into war-torn Burma, he declines. But we all know the almost-beautiful blonde, Sarah (Julie Benz), will convince John Rambo to do what is right.
When the missionaries get kidnapped, and a squad of international mercenaries shows up to rescue their dumb asses, Rambo grudgingly agrees to take them to the spot where he dropped them off.
What's beautiful about Rambo, why it excels as pulp action drama, is it's shameless and unabashed commitment to carnage. It knows why its audience is here, and it knows how to give them what they want. It is an exercise in classical action construction, cleanliness and clarity are favored over chaos and confusion. Why use fifteen different shots and angles when two are more effective?
Tony Scott has mastered a certain sort of contemporary action aesthetic, Man On Fire being his most accomplished piece. And most contemporary action directors try to ape that style, with mixed results. Stallone, rightly, decided against the action collage approach, and keeps it old school. While the events on screen are gruesome and filthy, the direction is crisp and clean. The only other director really doing action like this these days is Tarantino.
The story of Rambo is incidental. It effectively and believably - within the logic of the Rambo universe - puts Rambo in a situation where he must kill to survive. There is a great moment in the picture when Sarah implores Rambo with a mini speech about helping "the world". Rambo's mumbled response: "Fuck the world". He might as well have said, Fuck the modern world.