Cloverfield is a film i've been interested in seeing for a while now, not least because i used to be a big fan of Lost, the TV series created by the producer of this movie JJ Abrams. The basic premise is that a monster of some kind attacks New York City and the film follows the efforts of one small group of friends as they try and rescue the girlfriend of one of the group who is still trapped in the city centre. The twist to this film is the style in which it is shot, as we see events entirely through the filming of one of the friends using his own handheld digicam. This turns what could otherwise have become a run-of-the-mill blockbuster movie about monsters into something much more atmospheric and personal, in a similar way to the Blair Witch Project. Unfortunately i thought the Blair Witch Project was pretty weak I left Cloverfield a bit confused. Not because i didn't understand the film, or because in typical JJ Abrams style very little about the monster itself was ever explained, but because i couldn't decide if i enjoyed it or not. There was no part of the film where i was thinking, 'this is really tense' or 'this is really exciting' or 'this is really moving'. At the same time though, the experience was a really refreshing change from most of the movies i've been to the cinema to watch in the last few months (Transformers, Die Hard 4, I Am Legend, etc). At the end of the film, although i wasn't especially satisfied by the ending itself i did feel like it had been a movie worth watching. The characters were pretty well constructed, if a bit cliched at times (thinking particularly of the cameraman in the group), and the script was reasonably convincing. Overall, i'm still not sure exactly what score to give this film, but i do think its probably worth seeing and i hope some other people who have seen it can reply and tell me what they thought. One friend of mine said that it was a great movie unless they make a sequel, which i suppose i agree with; the point of this film really seems to be in providing something a bit unique and original for the genre, a sequel would pretty much ruin that feeling. Rating: 2.5/4 stars (if i'm allowed to do a .5 )
si fi Blair whitch is all you can say,slow start takes a while to kick off not much else to say really
I enjoyed it, I liked the fact there were no scientists explaining everything. It was a much more realistic way of telling a monster story as it happens to an average group of people.
I decided to save money on it until Rambo 4 comes out. By then Cloverfield will have slumped in price and I will not be paying the £15 for the 2 disc edition.
Well Rambo 4 is out so I will buy that instead. At the end when Rambo is back in America walking to his home I thought that all it would take is one snotty police officer to tell him to move along.....
Ive seen this film and I cant tell if thats a spoiler or not. I was having much more fun taking bits of deadskin from inbetween my big toe and the side of my big toe.
When I first saw the interweb virals and what little information about the movie that was available at the time I was hooked. I was gagging to see this film. A monster movie that was going to put right the horror that was the US remake of Godzilla. It had all the right ingredients: JJ Abrams - creator of superlative spy series 'Alias' and the co-creator of 'Lost'; New York being torn apart by a monster of unknown origin for reasons unknown; and random pretty lead girl. Sadly, it wasn't very good. For me, it completely failed to live up to the hype, but then, in recent years, what movie has? Still I'm holding out for JJ Abrams 'Star Trek' which I am convinced will be the business.
I prefer to think of it as "Destroy All Monsters" for the neo-post-consumerist generation. Or "Godzilla Versus King Ghidorah" for the post-Nietzscian urban-classicist collective.
I think I would of prefered this film if it was zombies. For some reason I find zombies exciting. The cameraman could become a zombie sometime but without the audience knowing(the camera could be put in his satchel) shot in one continuous shot like clover field until the end when the camerman zombie meets up with his son who goes daddy with his arm flung wide then the camerman would reach out and bite the childs neck. That would be disturbing.
I liked it. Decent effects, decent monster and a POV that hadn't really been done in a monster movie before. As for sequels there was talk about the same story told from the perspective of different characters though personally Im not so sure how enjoyable that would be. There is also a kind of Japanese manga prequel though it's an entirely different theme with the monster being (suprise, suprise) linked telepathically with a young school kid.