Cloverfield Review

Stars

Michael Stahl-David, Lizzy Caplan, T.J. Miller

Directed by Matt Reeves

So you’re having a lovely going away party and then all of a sudden a monster crashes your party. Who hasn’t that happened to? Except this happens to Rob Hawkins (Stahl-David). A vice president of a company having a going away to Japan party until a lovely young monster decides to chuck the statue of liberty’s head down the street for shits and giggles. Then mass panic ensues. Only this story is told in a very unique way. A single video camera held by the very humorous Hud Platt, the man in charge of video taping goodbyes (Miller) from everyone at the party. I thought I would hate this type of camera shot. But it actually worked out excellent. The beginning is somewhat annoying with the camera work but as soon as the monster hit the style and action of the film went up ten fold. Cloverfield is definitely a seat jumper. And the CGI is absolutely amazing. The subway scene with the little offspring just made twitch a tad, simply because the little buggers were hungry, and I had no appetite for them. And the relationship between Marlena (Caplan) and Hud evolves somewhat because he turns from the jerk-off hitting on her at the party to someone who is trying to keep her alive. Something very interesting. All the while Rob is trying to rescue Beth, a woman who he likes but left her on bad terms at the party. The monster in the mean time is ripping Manhattan to shreds and the military is busy playing fetch with it and the minions that sound like Flipper that spawn off of it. And the ending was perfect. I won’t spoil it but it wasn’t your typical ending that’s for sure. I liked how raw this movie was, like it didn’t kid around with you, it meant business. You were in the building when things were blowing up, you saw those critters in the dark and they’re fricken hungry and you almost wanted to run. This movie was also very short, but I liked it. I wish they would’ve shown a little more of the giant monster perusing New York looking for a good meal but I understand since they were shooting in that specific way. So overall I think this was a great experimentation with CGI and going Blair-witch style camera shooting. I hope however, that this trend doesn’t spawn off some eight other billion crappy rip-off movies that decide to come out just because someone liked the camera work. Final Verdict: Fantastic, raw, and personal.