Movie Review: Cloverfield

Cloverfield

When I first saw the trailer of this movie, I was skeptical. Here's another monster movie full of building crashing to the ground, people screaming, and mayhem. The trailer showed the main character at his going away party to Japan. All of a sudden they see an explosion in the background which prompted some chaos and screaming. The end. That was the trailer. Now the mention of Japan and then the explosion of a building led me into believing it was another Gozdilla flick. Something similar to the remake filmed in 1998 starring Matthew Broderick. But boy was I wrong. This movie is much more than your typical monster flick.


Spoiler Alert:
The movie is filmed in a style that only can be described as "Blaire Witch". Basically the whole film is a documentary, filmed on a home video camera. This is somewhat of a good thing. The movie becomes extremely intense after the first 15 minutes of the film. The use of the home video camera helps every scene feel like you are actually there with the characters. Your there with them when they are running for their lives, and through the mayhem of a devastated New York City. The scenes in fact rival those of the film captured during the 9/11 attacks, when the WTC fell. That being said however, the scenes become at certain points too intense. If you easily get motion sickness or have a heart condition, I would highly suggest not watching this film. I have a high tolerance to motion, but even I felt like puking my dinner out during the movies. Its so intense that at one point my hands would not stop shaking.

Back to the movie though. The plot was very simple. Just an average day in the NYC. Average people. Monster attacks. Everyone is on the run. Monster kicks everyone's a**. Nothing revolutionary, but with the way the film is made, no real complicated story was needed.

Here comes the spoilers:
The monster itself was nothing everyone would have imagined. At first it gives the impression that its a large sea creature. At first I thought it was some sort of giant squid because it destroys the Brooklyn Bridge with one swipe of it's tentacle...or what I thought was a tentacle. But then they throw a monkey wrench in the mix, in the form of what are like spawns of the monster, or offspring. They looked almost arachnid, or spider-like. Imaging if you took the bugs from Starship Trooper, shrunk them to about German Shepherd size, and made them all gray, and a wickedly rough and sharp exoskeleton, then you have a pretty good image of what these crazy things looked like.
The big monster itself didn't really get revealed until the last 5 minutes of the movie, when one of our main characters is eaten by it. Take a vampire bat, add a really long tail, and give it a set of T-Rex like arms on the torso, and thats what the monster was. Not scary when you just read the description, but watching it on film is a whole different experience.

At the end, this movie was good. I'm glad the director stuck with the documentary format because if it didn't then it would have been just another monster movie.
I recommend watching this movie if you want a adrenaline-pumping experience. Just bring a barf bag just in case.

S.H.T.