Reviews of Cloverfield

Good but not America's Godzilla

Posted : 1 month, 4 weeks ago on 10 July 2008 06:41 (A review of Cloverfield)

I was really young when I first watched Godzilla and fell in love with the monster and when I heard this was suppose to be the American version of a Godzilla monster so I got excited. Then I heard it was going to be filmed with just hand held camera ala Blair Witch and that excitement faded. But after seeing the movie the camera wasn't the issue, it was the monster.

The movie really starts with a farewell party in a New York apartment when a blackout hit and building shakes the partygoers head outside and notice a giant explosion on the other side of the city. As debris falls near them, including the head of the Statue of Liberty, the camera man captures a glimpse of a giant monster. The rest of the movie follows the 6 people trying to both find out what's going on and to escape the city.

Acting wise the movie is solid as the actors conveyed the sense of urgency and fear really well.
Sound in a music sense is nonexistent but that was okay as the sound FX's were great and the lack of music just makes the filming feel more genuine.
What really killed most of the movie was that it was filmed from the ground and the monster wasn't shown much. Now in Godzilla movies, Godzilla was the main protagonist and was featured most of the time while the Cloverfield monster seemed like a afterthought and so the film makers failed at what they said they wanted to do.

While the overall movie is good and would recommend to someone that likes monster movies to see and judge for themselves, I wouldn't recommend it for someone trying to find America's Godzilla as the film makers said it was.

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how crappy can it get

Posted : 4 months, 1 week ago on 2 May 2008 05:03 (A review of Cloverfield)

Cloverfield. New name for Central Park after some weird disaster happens. Not well explained in the film.

That said, the actors were lame. Lamer than I've ever seen in any movies - and I've watched a whole lot of them. They were lousier than B-movie actors, if that is possible.

The direction... was pathetic. Lousy. The camera was going all over the place, making it impossible to understand or figure out anything.

When you do get to see the "beast", you can tell it's very (emphasis here!) badly done. Not credible.

The dialog between the characters is unbelievably childish. No, let me correct this. Not even children would speak that way. I felt as if the script had been written by morons.

To avoid at all cost.

(Just because there was a huge promotional campaign about the movie, does not mean it's any good! This movie is just another "Godzilla in NYC". Useless.)


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Score based on feeling.

Posted : 6 months ago on 5 March 2008 04:59 (A review of Cloverfield)

When I first heard of this movie I was really intrigued. The smart marketing campaign really got to me and I just had to see it. I caught it in a theater, which is really the only option to give the fantastic audio justice. A lot of people complain about the shaky camera style used in this movie, but I just love it. Evern since Firefly, Battlestar Galactica and especially Friday Night Lights, I have been in love with more realistic handheld camera work. I'm almost disappointed every time I see a shot from a crane or a standard stable shot. How we follow a group of regular people trying to escape this horror is just refreshing and fantastic. The slow buildup in the beginning is also great. The ending was quite sudden, and I'm ok with that. The only real problems I had with the movie was that the guy with the camera is Marmaduke in Carpoolers for me, so kinda ruined him a bit, and the short runtime. Usually I would have given it a 9/10, but I smiled for an hour after I left the theater so 10/10 is based on my feeling after watching it. I actually don't want a sequel since I really don't think it can be as good or surprising.

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Cloverfield

Posted : 6 months, 3 weeks ago on 13 February 2008 10:09 (A review of Cloverfield)

Filmed from the point of view of a handheld camera, this film charts the progress of a group of friends trying to make their way across Manhatten to save Beth, the girlfriend of one of the group, in the wake of an attack.

I don't really like these 'camcorder-style' films, they generally just annoy me and tend to look amateurish. I hated the Blair Witch Project, for example. But I was willing to give Cloverfield a go - and boy was I pleased I did.

For once the style worked. Seeing the film through the lens of one man's camcorder gave it a sense of claustrophobia and of having no idea what was going on that really upped the fear level. The scene in the underground tunnels was particularly scary.

Seeing only glimpses of the monster was another masterstroke, spoiled only by seeing too much in one scene near the end. The demons we imagine are always far scarier than those that can be shown on screen, and this is something JJ Abrams seems to understand, and to have used to great effect in Lost as well as here.

The handheld camera really puts you the viewer in the action. At times it's almost possible to forget that Hud is there and feel like this is what you're seeing. It makes the film seem more real than most other things I've seen. The cuts in the tape to a normal day in two of the characters' lives brings all the characters to life as 'people who are just like us'.

I do have a couple of criticisms, for one, would anyone really hold onto a camcorder that long? I'm not convinced that anyone would risk so much, even for the girl he loved, and that the others went with him is unbelievable. Also I'm pretty sure the military would have taken the camera from the group.

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Ambitious.

Posted : 7 months ago on 3 February 2008 11:30 (A review of Cloverfield)

This is certainly a challenging movie to review for several reasons. First of all, it’s going to contain spoilers though I don’t think they should be considered “spoilers”. They’re more like logical steps in the story, but people may not be aware of a logical step in a story and be put off by me simply mentioning said events, so for the record: spoilers will be made. Secondly, it has an extreme amount of hype that comes with it, and a lot of times that causes some very decided, and passionate opinions about trivial things. It’s hard to look at these kinds of movies without falling into the nonsense, but I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of doing this. I will say that I went into it thinking it was going to be horrible. From start to finish, the idea seemed very ridiculous. A monster attacking a city, the shaky handheld camera, the notion that it came from space, it all just seemed like ideas that were either purposely avoided, or overused, all rolled up into one big movie, and plastered to hype-posters with “mystery glue”. I have to say that despite my very low expectations, I was surprised at how good a movie could be with so many flaws.

The movie opens black with some text letting us know the tape was found in central park, so it’s assumed from the beginning that everybody dies, but it also kind of implies that maybe it’s all over and done with, but I’ll touch on that later. The opening is a party for a friend who is going off to Japan as a the vice president of some corporation of something we’re never told. My first thought was about how predictable Japan was for the distant place, as this is a movie featuring a monster attacking a city. It’s already undeniable that the most popular movies in the monster genre are Godzilla and King Kong, but going off to New York wouldn’t have made much sense. But it’s forgivable, because if people are going to poke fun at your movie by calling it Godzilla, you might as well beat them to the joke. That’s all beside the point, because the real issue with the entire introduction to the movie is that it felt fake. The entire idea behind the movie is to suspend your belief long enough to enjoy it, and while that’s totally impossible, you can at least be convinced of some things by means of great acting. This is where the entire introduction is lacking, as it’s obviously lesser known, less talented actors attempting to talk freely, act naturally, and not seem like they’re following a script. Fact is, they do, and I think it wouldn’t have been too risky to just have them improvise all the dialogue, except for some elements that would have progressed them into areas of the city, pushing the story. I could be wrong, but I don’t think it would have hurt the film anymore than totally unnatural sounding, written dialogue.

After the party goes on for a while, some of the guys are just sitting around, there is a huge noise, and most of the city loses power. It just happens, and for this, I give the film credit. There is no real build up like what you might expect, they’re just sitting around when it happens. They go to the roof to get a better view, and that’s when the movie really gets interesting. An explosion, massive debris falling on the building, lots of power shortages, lots of screaming and running, when they’re outside there is just nothing but chaos, and you’re never really sure what to think, what will happen, what’s going on. It’s just madness, and I have to give credit again for great special effects, because the movie really does a good job for what it has. The city really does look destroyed, and it never really has that “cartoon” look a lot of modern special effects have, and suffer from. Be it a destroyed bridge, collapsing building, whatever, it’s always convincing. My personal favorite part of the movie is a scene where they’re walking down the street and suddenly the monster makes an appearance, and a hail of missiles, gunfire, noise, tanks, army troops, and everything else. All the while the unfortunate friends are stuck ducking under cars and screaming, and it’s just so intense you can’t help but get very excited. What else is unfortunate, is that from here on out there are a series of scenes that feel extremely fake, only because they’re being filmed. I can only speak for myself, and I think I can vouch for the majority of my friends, but I don’t think I’d film people having to tell their mother that they their son is dead. But the movie is full of scenes like this, and it makes perfect sense in a conventional film, because there “is no camera”, we’re watching from a point of view. But in Cloverfield, there is a camera, and a very tasteless cameraman who doesn’t think it’s ever a good idea to turn it off, no matter what. Some scenes just don’t have that feeling like the rest, and it hurts the movie.

The cameraman himself was one of my biggest complaints. While I understand that in any terrible situation, you always have to have a sense of humor, but with a movie like this, and a situation like that, I simply don’t believe anybody would have the mental capacity to be cracking wise as often as this guy does. He must have guts and balls of absolute steel, and nerves to match, because just moments after escaping death, time and time again, he’s right on top of the joke department, and he’s always able to bring down the audience (me, in this case) from a place of suspended belief. This is just one of a few clichés that the movie has, and is ultimately why I wouldn’t rate it higher. It’s a movie that’s attempting to take most conventional aspects of filmmaking and throw them away, yet it’s filled with plenty of movie clichés that you would expect in any other movie, but get in this one too. I know a lot of people thought Hud, the cameraman, was a great aspect to the film, and was very funny, but I didn’t feel it. I’ve been in situations where I’ve been terrified, and somebody making a bunch of wisecracks and constantly doing their best to convince me they can’t take something serious isn’t my idea of comic relief. It’s just annoying. Granted, I’ve never been in a situation as bad as what these kids were in, and it might be that kind of bizarre defense mechanism, but it doesn’t come off that way. Instead, after seeing this movie, you might expect Hug to make a joke at a funeral, or be “that guy” to say “awkward” during an awkward moment. But that’s all set aside, because like everyone else, he dies, and if you hated him like I did, you can enjoy his death.

Now, this is where there is another problem that could have been easily corrected. The movie does a great job of hiding the monster, and I really liked that. You see pieces of it here and there, but it’s never really holding still, and it’s never clear, and it’s well done. Except for one scene where the monster literally just shows up randomly without any warning, and just sits in front of the everybody so it can be filmed nice and clear, and it even snarls into the camera. It’s obvious that it was done just to satisfy people that wanted to see it, and couldn’t handle the concept of something evil that’s never seen, and it seems really out of place. The entire movie does such a good job of making the camera seem plausible, meaning it never seems too convenient that everybody is there when it’s being filmed, except for this one moment. Up until now, the monster has been loud, fast, and followed by missiles and gun fire, but for this one moment that goes on for a long time, it’s just there. No warning or anything. The size also seems a little off. Before this shot, the monster seems huge, with a head maybe two floors tall, but here, it seems to be much, much smaller. Other than this shot, the monster is very well hidden, and the concept of hiding the threat for suspense works great. This one shot almost ruins it. And like all the other flaws, it’s forgivable because the action is great and it looks good.

Now, on to the last issue I had with the movie. I’ve mentioned clichés, and that the dialogue was poor, and none of them would have been there if it weren’t for this huge annoyance. Cloverfield is a love story, the monster is just the accelerator. The etire crew of kids are moving into the city, where the monster is, just so one of them can save a girl he loves. Of course, this is never advertised, or implied. But it’s there and it’s really the point. It feels like it might has been written by Bay, the same way his movies are loved wrapped around action. The end of the movie is something I won’t go into detail about, but it is cliché, and it does involve the lovebirds. It’s a disappointing ending, but satisfying all at the same time. I’m glad everybody died, and I’m glad the monster is never explained, and I’m glad that it ends with us losing. But I hate the characters, and how cliché their actions are, and how sappy it is. In a movie that wants me to play along, they do a poor job of creative realistic, believable people. But, all the negative aspects aside, it’s a cool movie, and totally worth seeing at least once. Just don’t believe the hype, don’t fall for the idea that it’s totally original, and unlike anything else, and simply a masterpiece. It’s not deep, it’s not a masterpiece, but it is cool. Overall, it seems that people either love it, or hate it. What you have to do is understand that it’s a well balanced attempt, and perhaps the first step in a new method of making monster and horror movies. The best thing it does is pave the way for future attempts at creative filmmaking, and that alone is more than I can say about a lot of other films.

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Pathetic, ridiculous, dumb - no words...

Posted : 7 months, 1 week ago on 30 January 2008 09:53 (A review of Cloverfield)

I barely can find anything positive in this film and I am trying hard - VERY HARD, in fact.
The choice of home video style shooting was rather annoying than interesting - it was sooo overdone, 'artificially home video' with plenty of non-home-video errors that it certainly didn't strike me as authentic, never, not even for a single second,... and the introduction at the beginning - prior to catastrophic events - was not only VERY LONG but also BOOOOOORING! Yes, I understand these are average, clueless American hipsters, fine let's get over it in 5 moinutes instead of 15-20 - ahh, you're right, that would make the movie just 1 hour long... ummm wait, what's wrong with that if there's nothing more in it...?

On the other hand I think animation and visual effects were actually fine (I work in this field), the problem was the artistic design, that was mediocre and incoherent, typical dumb-as-hell TV-styled crap... oh wait, the director is a beginner TV-series director (6-8 episodes in noname ones)... oh wait, his producer is his friend... ahh and the writer is an even crappier TV-series writer (episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer - yes, I'm not joking -, as well as Angel, Alias and Lost)...

After realizing the shortcomings of the whole crew it's not a surprise that as a movie Cloverfield IS an utter CRAP, no question about it - no plot whatsoever, completely ridiculous, laughable ideas all the time: they make a trip in the subway from the Downtown to Columbus Circle on foot - try that - while fighting raptors - and try that - and even some soldiers but, of course when they get to the building at Columbus Circle this not-yet-girlfriend is trapped in - skewered at her upper lung by a ~1" thick metal stick but still alive, mind you -, it's not only that this 50+ floor animal did not collapse but simply 'leaned on' the next building - you don't have to live here nor be an architect to see the idiocy here - but also they still have energy to WALK UP 48 FLOORS, CLIMB THROUGH AN OPEN ROOF TO THE TILTED SKYSCRAPER, PULL THE GIRL OFF THE GIANT METAL STICK THEN SHE NOT ONLY CLIMBS BACK WITH THEM BUT THEY WALK DOWN THE 48 FLOORS AGAIN - NOW TRY THAT!

I mean, PLEAHHHHHSE... is there anybody SANE PERSON left in Hollywood? What kind of worthless, pathetic CRAP is this?
This piece was written BEFORE the strike so I must say WRITERS SHOULD REMAIN IN STRIKE MODE - we hardly can get any worse than this utterly worthless crap called Cloverfield.
And please, PLEASE: GET RID OF THESE TV-SERIES BUNGLERS!!!

BOTTOM LINE: Don't waste your money & time - even basic cable regularly offers better choices. IT IS AN UTTER CRAP, period.

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sorry, I think we didn't see the same mo

Posted : 7 months, 1 week ago on 30 January 2008 08:15 (A review of Cloverfield)

Shteffilove, may I beg to differ? This movie was quite terrible. I think that the mutant lizard was absolutely unrealistic, and there was too much gore to enjoy it. The fact that Madeliene or whatever her name was didn't die sooner remains a mystery to me. She got attacked by the mutant spider; I would say that is enough

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On Cloverfield

Posted : 7 months, 1 week ago on 29 January 2008 06:05 (A review of Cloverfield)

Cloverfield was an exceptional movie. The acting was well done, the graphics were amazing, and the overall tone to the movie scared the h*** out of everyone in the theater. Those that didn't like the movie obviously didn't understand it at all. Those left with questions just had to do a quick 5 minute search on the movie to find the answers. It was enjoyable, and quite possibly will be one of the best horror/thrillers of 2008.

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Cloverfield review

Posted : 7 months, 2 weeks ago on 26 January 2008 10:51 (A review of Cloverfield)

I am sorry, but this film is terrible.I do not understand the title "Cloverfield" and not only did this not make sense (ppl were getting their heads blown up, mutilated spiders?), but there was a lot of blood too. I think that the only reason this film was a good see is because I could improve my Russian.

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Cloverfield review

Posted : 7 months, 2 weeks ago on 20 January 2008 03:29 (A review of Cloverfield)

Cloverfield is a spectacularly made film. I have heard some people say this movie is bad, but they just can't respect, a well made film. The acting in "Cloverfield", is great, and the monster that attacks the city, is very realistic, and actually kind of scary. I loved this film. And I hope you do to.

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