Cloverfield [Blu-ray] [2008]

Many reviewers didn't love Cloverfield due to a lack of substance in the characters and others questioning why the guy didn't just drop the camera to begin with considering the situation. However, I can't help but feel when considering what sort of film we're witnessing, where is the harm in suspending one's belief system and allowing ourselves to believe and be absorbed? The hectic camera and the incredible special effects come together so well, I find it hard to believe that anyone could claim that Cloverfield, at the very least, isn't a ground breaking movie that pulls out all the stops. Cloverfield was never meant to be anything but a straight up monster film, and that's exactly what it is. Incredible from start to finish, and even better when watched in high definition.

Despite the mixed reviews, I'm glad I went to the cinema to watch Cloverfield. Once it got going I was hooked. It looked so real. 10 years ago they could have made it but it just doubt it would look so real as this does. If you're a monster movie fan it's a must. If not, it's risk but there's a 50/50 chance you'll love it too. It does take a little too long to get going - i.e the monster arrival.

When it came to the BD I was a little dubious at the start, since it is shot with a camcorder, that it just wouldn't be worth it. But I have been proved totally incorrect - it's stunning. The sound is actually amazing too - there really is debris falling outside your home!

My two cents. I feel quite protective of this movie. Rant alert!

There are a lot of people who didn't like this film because they got sick from the handicam work. I can understand this - I'd be a bit cross if I paid for my ticket and then watched a jerky movie that made me feel sick. Fair enough. I was lucky, I didn't feel sick.

However, there are also a lot of people who are rubbishing this film for a lack of character development or plot subtlety. I find this baffling. Er... guess what? This isn't a Merchant Ivory film. It's a monster movie. The poster with the decapitated Statue of Liberty covered in claw marks was a bit of a clue. I don't recall any criticism of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" based on its lack of rampaging monsters, now why was that? Ah yes, it was because "Four Weddings" was a romcom, not a visceral monster movie. There aren't any finely detailed and lovingly developed character relationships in Cloverfield because about 50% of the screentime the characters are screaming, or running, and the other 50% they are screaming AND running. I also object to the people saying "they're just whiney New Yorkers, I wanted to see them die". What??? What a lovely perspective! They're not that "whiney" - in fact they're pretty damn brave (I think I'd probably have a bit of a moan if a monster was inconsiderate enought to destroy London when I was in the middle of it and kill all my friends) and I loved the conceit of the cutting between the live "Cloverfield" footage and the historical footage on the camera of the couple on their one perfect day out together - it certainly tugged at my heartstrings, and offered a great contrast with the carnage in the present.

Then there are people who are just saying that this film is "bad". That makes me a bit cross. There are plenty of "bad" movies - try "Norbert" for example. That is a "bad" movie - cynical, poorly written, racist, poorly performed by has-been "stars" turning up for the paycheck, a McMovie aimed at the thickest, easiest-pleased lowest common denominator. "Cloverfield" is about as far from that sort of filmmaking as it is possible to get. For a mainstream movie, this is experimental film making - it's brave, it's unusual, it was launched at an unusual time for movies, it was marketed unusually and intelligently, it's an extremely carefully-constructed movie, a real labour of love (look out for the falling satellite in the very final shot!). It's short - really bucking the trend. It's obviously a much more important film than the inevitable indistinguishable three hour oh-so-worthy Oscar nomination vehicles with the same old stars going through the same old motions.

I'm happy to pin my colours to the mast: I'd rate Cloverfield as borderline genius and an important piece of filmmaking in that it pushes (arguably creating, certainly extending) a novel kind of genre. A zeitgeisty, "reality through the moviecam/mobile phone camera" style that captures the kind of images that really make the news nowadays. There will be many more movies like this, and so there should be.

I and my wife came out of this movie shaking. She - a lover of all things romcom and girly trash movies - announced after a minute or so of stunned silence that it was the best film she'd ever seen.

I don't know about that. But I can say this: Cloverfield is the second-best EXPERIENCE that I've ever had at the movies. And the best was Star Wars, when I was five. So my standards were a little simpler then.

Until we have virtuality, smellyvision and all the other interactive stuff that the future no doubt holds, this is the nearest we'll get to being right in the middle of a good old "monster crushes city" experience. It's exactly like being caught with a crowd of random strangers who are trapped and stunned right in the eye of the storm. Who cares if they're idiots? Who cares if they are in shock and do irrational things? It's totally irrelevant. What's relevant is that there's a gigantic monster somewhere out of camera shot that could come into camera shot at any second, and it wants to kill you.

The little creatures are straight rip-offs of the Starship Troopers bugs. This doesn't matter, because they're still really bloody scarey. The "result of the bite" sequence is unexpected, sudden, brutal and shocking. Wonderful, as punchy as the Godfather of such moments, the John Hurt Alien chestbursting moment. The Cloverfield monster itself is absolutely the best Godzilla style megamonster I've ever seen in a movie. Really, really, really grotesque and frightening.

It's a movie about a 500 foot high indestructible monster rampaging through Manhattan. It's clearly silly. But it achieves movie nirvana - it totally suspends disbelief. It feels real. It's traumatic. It's horrifying.

Absolutely freaking fantastic film and anyone who rubbishes it otherwise than because of subjective problems with motion sickness has a very strange notion of what is, or isn't, good cinema. That or they went in hoping for Hugh Grant to pop up and give someone a nice romantic kiss in the rain.