Cloverfield

Hey so, I saw Cloverfield a few days ago. Overall I thought it was an excellent monster movie, mostly for it’s creativity because it brings something new to the table and somewhat recreates the genre. It was interesting because they put very little focus on the actual monster and more focus on the relationships and roller coaster ride that a group of friends go through. J.J. Abrams did an excellent job of manipulating the use of the camcorder effect by showing spliced in film sequences on the guy’s camera to better illustrate the past happenings in these people’s lives. I’m baffled as to how they were able to insert these massive destruction special effect sequences into the shaky shots without it looking fake. Very good job on that part. The extreme shakiness got kind of annoying at times because it made me a little motion sick and I had to close my eyes a few times for the feeling to pass. Lots of really neat surprises in the movie, and the unique style of the movie (similar to the Blair Witch Project) makes it seem all that more real, so you really get sucked into the movie. I thought it was a really cool the way they never really explain anything in the movie either. I mean I SAW the movie, but if you asked me what the plot was about, or spoilers, there really isn’t much to spoil because I still don’t know where the hell this monster came from, and I still don’t know exactly what happened in the city other then mass destruction, and I still don’t really know what happened to the monster in the end or the friends, etc. I guess the only spoilers I could really reveal is the focal story in the film about the friends and their relationships to each other, etc. But that’s not really why people go to see this movie anyway. It’s basically just a straightforward, realistic, mass destructive, chaotic, mysterious monster romp.

The only real criticism I can honestly provide about this movie is that the constant shakiness and long shots where you can’t really see much made it drag just a tiny bit. Also they have a “money shot” scene where you see the monster’s face dead on for like 2o seconds, which was really lame because it looked really CG to me and kind of broke the effect the movie had on me. Also I think it’s better, being that much of this movie’s appeal is based on mystery, that you don’t actually have a direct “money shot” of the monster. I liked only catching glimpses of it, it made it feel more realistic, like what I would see if I were actually there. I think it would be pretty rare to catch a top down diagonal, full body clear view of a giant city leveling monster for more then 15 seconds, if I were actually there. All I would really see would be maybe just a giant foot moving through dust, or a tail swiping around a corner and that’s it.

So it was great. I’d give this movie a 3.5/5 if I were an official critic. Mostly just because it was an excellent movie, but most of it’s appeal is derived from it’s sheer creativity and the unique quality in the way it was shot. I mean the characters were a little dry, and there wasn’t much of a plot (not that I’m suggesting this style of film should have one). Had it been shot more like a normal Hollywood movie without shaky cam, with the tense orchestra music, and familiar stars, etc. then it would just be a sub par boring thriller full of glitzy and beautiful destruction and carnage sequences you can get in any action flick these days.