Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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216 of 265 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Marmite, 9 April 2008
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.
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not a complete waste..., 25 Jun 2008
Cloverfield, after all the exciting build up and 'clever' marketing it was only reasonable to expect that this film would be a great hit at the box office and maybe the potential to become a cult classic. Sadly I don't think that will be happening anytime soon.
The first section of the film is all a bit slow out of the blocks really, some might say it is intended to get to know the characters a little. I found it to be rather annoying and quite frankly boring, not only that but to my horror it is when the viewer first finds out that the film is actually going to be about a guy chasing after his true love (nothing ground breaking there!)
I did not mind the camera technique used (but then again i didnt like it either) The one thing that was annoying is the guy filming all the action, his comments are so silly its unbelievable...enough for you to be rooting for the monster at this point. Who nwould carry a camera around in this situation anyway! well the excuse given is to "document" the events that happen...
That leads us onto the monster, it is well created and i dont totally agree with other reviews which suggest you dont see enough of it...thats part of the mystery behind the film, not knowing what it is or why it is attacking New York. The length of the film is also quite annoying, it just leaves you wanting to see just that little bit more to justify the time you have invested to watch it.
Worth a watch if you get the opportunity...
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Cloverfield, 20 April 2008
Before leaving for Tokyo to start a new job Rob (Michael Stahl-David) has a surprise party thrown for him by his friends. During the party though, New York City is shaken, attacked by....something, and carnage ensues. And it's this something that stands between Rob and Beth (Odette Yutsman), the women he loves. So begins a race across New York to find the girl and to survive. We witness all these events, first-hand, captured on the camcorder of Rob's best friend Hud (T J Miller).
First released as a trailer during Transporters last summer, no-one knew what this film was - literally. The film at this point didn't have a name, didn't have a cast, didn't have a release date (officially) and didn't have a plot. All that the audience were given were three things: a big-name producer (J J Abrams), a possible release date/possible title (1-18-08) and one of the greatest trailers in movie history. This set into motion six months of viral marketing on the internet, with rumour upon rumour spreading between internet forums. It's the mystery that surrounds Cloverfield which is one of the beauties of the film.
And the mystery continues into the film. The main question on most movie-goers lips is what is the monster (remember the monster isn't actually called Cloverfield)? In most disaster films, Professor Von-knows-alot shuffles on-screen, hair standing on end and clip-board in hand, explaining that the monster is a result of events x, y and z, and the only way to destroy it is to, yada, yada, yada. But Abrams has never been that good to his audience (remember, the man created Lost!!!) and you're going to have to work for your answers. The viral sites give clues to the source of the terror but there are also clues in the film, so keep your eyes (and ears) peeled from the beginning of the film, right until the end, and then even post credits.
Despite not being revolutionary, the hand-held camera technique used by Abrams and director Matt Reeves was a new approach for the disaster film genre. The cinema-goer is transported from being a viewer of events, to being part of the event - you become part of the action and terror. This brings home the human aspect of the disaster film; an aspect which is rarely seen is films of this genre. Since all of our views of the event came from a camcorder, there are no sweeping shots of the monster, which only heighten the mystery which surrounds the film. A tail here, a ridge there, and we have to piece together the rest.
The hand-held camera approach should connect the audience to the horror of the attack and the heightened emotions of the young friends. However, this is the main problem with the film. The audience must spend the first 20 minutes of the film in the company of some of the most annoying people ever to grace the silver screen. By casting unknowns, Abrams believed that the situation would feel more realistic than having Jake Gyllenhaal and Jennifer Aniston running across New York; we would see the disaster from the perspective of `ordinary New Yorkers'. But these people are like the cast of one of those one season comedies on E4 - you don't given a damn about them. The audience should be willing Rob, Hud, Beth and the rest on, hoping they survive. Instead, by the time the city starts to crumble, you'll be willing the `something' to come along and squash them all.
The film is more of a traditional line-`em-up, pick-`em-off teen film which everyone is familiar with. From the moment the group decide to go after Beth, the audience known that they're not all going to make it off Manhattan Island, and it's just a matter for waiting for the inevitable to happen. The film also lacks much tension or scares, bar one scene in the New York subway, with...well, I'll leave that as a surprise.
After all the build-up, Cloverfield was disappointment. The revolutionary approach to the disaster film is spoiled by an infuriating cast, and by the end of the film, you'll be cheering for the monster to win. My advice is to arrive 20 minutes late!!!
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