Cloverfield Review

Cloverfield is a Horror/Sci-fi/Mystery thing directed by Matt Reeves, director of such big hits as "The Pallbearer" and "Pilot episode of Conviction", about a monster attacking America. The same story-line seen a dozen times before in King Kong, Pearl Harbour and Godzilla.
The thing that sets this movie apart from the rest however, is it's "shaky camera" effect, made famous by the Blair Witch. I don't know why they'd want to copy the Blair Witch of all things, but what the hey, let's see how it goes.
It starts off by breaking rule 1 of monster movies: The shit must hit the fan within 10 minutes. However, the shit just sits idly by chatting to his friends at a party for about 20 minutes, before the action starts. And at this point, the film just goes from strength to strength.
Let me say one thing, I hate modern films. Especially action films. They're mostly just dumb with no story-line, and often fall flat on its face (See: Bad Boys 1 and 2). But Cloverfield (whilst not strictly an action film, but whatever) really does set a new standard. The "camera held by the protagonist" effect works surprisingly well in this film, with you only catching glimpses of the creature whilst everyone else see's it clearly. But this is fine, it keeps you on your toes and guessing what the fucks going to happen next and also what the fuck the creature looks like. However, some bits raise an eyebrow, like when he holds the camera up whilst running rather than swinging his arms, but that's just nitpicking.
A lot of complaints that has risen about this film run along the lines of "Why would he keep filming during a time like this", but I don't think these people have seen the average American public before. How many videos are there of 9/11? Hundreds. People like to film disasters for some reason. I don't know why, maybe they have a sick fetish of seeing broken buildings and huge monsters and are filming it so if they do get out of the danger zone alive then at least they have something to jack off to afterwards.
The actors used in the film are largely unknown (in fact, this is the protagonists first film), but this works well for the film. The actors do a marvelous job of it all, conveying the emotions that you would expect arise from a time like that, notably insanity and panic.

If I do have to criticize the film, and I do, it would be the comic relief inserted into it. If your best friends brother has just died (that was a spoiler, by the way), you wouldn't be talking about flaming homeless men. And I'm not using "flaming" as another word for "fucking", I mean literally homeless men on fire. Another thing I felt this film did was wrong was when it showed the creature in full clear view near the end, which for me takes away from the mystery of it. For me the best part of the film was leaning closer to the TV to try and get a better view of the monster, and thinking about how I'm going to google "cloverfield monster" right after the film, but then it just showed me what it was anyway, which made if more like the American "Godzilla" than "A good movie".

All in all though, Cloverfield is an enjoyable movie, it's not perfect but then again, nothing in the last 5 years of cinema has been. I recommend you seeing it, but don't be surprised if the ending left you a little disappointed.


Click here to buy the dolly of the Cloverfield Monster. Because it really needed a fucking action figure.