Cloverfield

If you want something to read...Cloverfield Review

I found this on my computer. It's not very good, but it has some support for the score.

On July 2^nd, 2007, a  trailer with only a release date debuted. It showed partygoers viewing an explosion, and the statue of liberty’s head rolling in a street at the bottom of someone’s apartment building. That was the start of the 1-18-08 (now known as Cloverfield) craziness. The title wasn’t known until the second trailer, which was shown before Beowulf. Ever since, crazy ideas, fake trailers, and basically one big question ruled the ‘net. As soon as I saw the first trailer, back in July, I was  hooked.
 
The movie begins with a government declaration of the footage being genuine. Some friends are having a going away party for Rob, who’s taken a job in Japan. Beth, Marlena, Lily, Jason (Rob’s brother), and Hud, the cameraman of sorts, are some of his closest friends. The party is going fine until an earthquake, accompanied by a large roar, disturbs the event. From the rooftop, an explosion is viewed. The partygoers get down to street level to run away, and the Statue of Liberty’s head crashes down the street.  After that, it’s a search and rescue mission for Beth. It’s more complicated than that, but the details would take away from the experience.
 
Cloverfield can be called many different things.  Among them, there’s “Good”, “Awesome!” “B+” and “Totally radically awesomely dinomax!” (?). I would have to say I agree.
 
Centering on a monster attack on New York City, from the perspective of a camcorder, Cloverfield did what it was made to do. Answer the big question, “What is that!?” make some new ones, and be really cool. It’s pretty amazing that all of this is in a respectable 84 minutes.
 
Cloverfield’s  concept is really what makes it so good. With monster movies like King Kong , the camera will show you the creature plenty of times. They can do that; someone with a camcorder isn’t going to run up to a 30-story creature causing millions of dollars of destruction. As a result of the camcorder concept, you see so little. It never really bothered me, except for the occasional drop or sprint. The acting is enough to get by. It’s not Oscar worthy, nor is it something to complain about. Standard emotions are displayed throughout, with an occasional moment of great acting.
 
In terms of special effects, Cloverfield does really well. Of course they are distinctly computer generated, but sometimes the effects are so subtle they are hardly noticeable. The tone and colors match the mood of despair. The monster does look really cool (yes, you actually get to see it clearly), along with the destruction and mayhem it causes.
 
Great sound effects also make an appearance, not only when the monster approaches (the Inver Grove theater literally shook), but just in general. A building collapsing, the wind passing through broken windows, and even camcorder sounds (they aren’t used so much that it gets annoying). This is definitely a movie made to be seen on the silver screen, or at least a fairly large TV and some handy surround sound that is cranked up a bit.
 
On various movie websites, Cloverfield is put under the horror subgenre. I can see where they are coming from, but this isn’t scary. At heart, it’s a mysterious monster film from the perspective of a few 20-somethings. Nearly everything clicks, and it’s a lot of fun to watch.
 
4/5

Last updated: 2010-04-10 19:43:00 by user01

Cloverfield

If you guys are still in the dark about the film, Cloverfield is about a giant monster attacking Manhattan all seen through the lens of a very very very durable hand-held camera with amazing battery life. Finally watching my cousin play Counter Strike actually proved useful for this one because of the shaky quality of the video which may give you motion sickness so be warned!



But in my opinion, telling a story through a first-person's point of view is probably the most brilliant idea in movie making because it plunges you directly into the scene of the film; like you are actually in it. Yeah you may get sick but you'll get used to it.



Think The Blair Witch Project and Godzilla and you will get Cloverfield. This film has been hyped for a few months via viral market and by speculations of the monster itself. And did it live up to it's hype? My answer is OH GOD YES! I don't watch a lot of monster films but Cloverfield is by far the most intense monster film I have ever seen in my life. After the initial 15 minute character introduction, the film turns gritty and does not go for 5 minutes without a HOLY SHIT I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING moment.



Now the acting is pretty decent and all the characters are given the equal amount of screen time though the main attraction of the movie is the movie itself. The film literally keeps you at the edge of your seat because it just seems so real that you just can't help but feel like a part of the movie. The presentation is brilliant,using only the the sounds all around as the background music which adds to the realistic effect of the movie.



Other than that, the special effects are some of the most seamless stuff you'll ever see in a film. The monster itself is actually not seen in its entirety only being viewed from different angles for the audience to piece it together as the survivors themselves are, so you pretty much know as much as they do about everything going on making you actually feel like you're there.

The film is downright scary and gritty with all the destruction and death around but it does pull a few comedic moments at times, mainly by the guy who was filming the video. Other than that, Cloverfield is one intense work of art best if seen in a packed theater just to hear the audiences reactions. Admittedly the shock value will wane after multiple viewings but for what it's worth Cloverfield is an excellent film and by far the best monster movie of the 21st century.

RATING: 8/10

P/S: Wait till after the end credits and listen very carefully. Tell me what you heard on my CBox.

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NicholasC

Cloverfield

What Hiroshima was to Godzilla, 9/11 is to Cloverfield. They’re both about catharsis. I grant you, it’s catharsis of the hinky sort. Each takes the greatest horror its people have ever experienced and makes a monster movie out of it – but y’know, we’re not in ancient Greece anymore. No one’s going to write an Odyssey about our troubles. Today, when bad things happen, we call Jerry Bruckheimer for catharsis, not Euripides. Movies like United 93 and World Trade Centremight want to be America’s response to 9/11, but the real response isCloverfield. Some real events are so fantastical you need the fantastical to talk about them. And to claim them back.

You may have heard about Cloverfield’s selling point. If not, think: Blair Witch. Like The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield is shot in shaky-vision. It looks like a caffeinated war report. Its camera is never still. At the start of the movie the camera is being used to film a goodbye party. Some schmuck named Josh or Brad or somesuch is leaving for Japan (nudge, nudge, Godzilla-in-joke). His buddy Chuck (or whatever his name is) films the male and female leads as they introduce themselves (not a one worth saving). Then the monster attacks New York.

My big problem with this movie (and I grant you, it won’t be everyone’s problem) is that I didn’t give a damn about the people. None of them is an axe murderer, exactly, but – did they have to seem like rejects fromFriends? The main guy: stubble, suit, girlfriend. Is there anything about him I’ve missed? His friend behind the camera: looks like Jake Busey. Next! Ok, so that’s obnoxious. But even in a monster movie, it wouldn’t have hurt to have a decent script. The early scenes of Cloverfield are so stultifying, I was panting for the monster after twenty minutes.

The attack is sudden, violent, thrilling and guilt-inducing – in equal measure. Director Matt Reeves doesn’t even bother to cloak his references to 9/11; he just slings them at you: the collapsing buildings, the avalanche of smoke, “Oh my God!” like a mantra and then paper falling from the sky, the way it did. To watch these scenes is to marvel that in seven years we’ve gone from honestly talking about the end of violent movies (remember that?), to – Cloverfield. If Matt Reeves had even mooted this idea seven years ago he’d have been lynched. Now, it’s a $40,000,000 opening weekend.

We watch the survivors pick their way through the city. There’s a meshuggeneh plotline about Josh/Brad/whoever’s girlfriend being trapped in her apartment. He wants to rescue her. His friends agree (for the same hazy reasons Chuck keeps the camera rolling). Along the way they encounter all the staples of the monster movie: the military, a dark tunnel, some big explosions, sudden death. Cloverfield keeps quiet to the whys and wherefores of the monster. He could have come free with a cereal box for all these guys know. What’s important is that he’s unstoppable. And no matter where they are, he’ll be there: howling, spitting and mashing army guys real good.

What’s the Greek for “too soon”? Did ancient Greeks ever say it? EitherCloverfield is a grossly tactless exercise in pimping our grief, or it’s an act of defiance – a fist-pump – a movie that says “this is our tragedy, we own it now, we can sell it”. I think you need to be American to answer that. If you’re a New Yorker, your answer is definitive. For me, I think Cloverfield is inevitable; no-one honestly believed we’d stop making violent movies after 9/11 – so what else is there to do? Hiroshima killed 70,000 and the Japanese dealt with it via a man in a rubber suit. Why not a CGI heffalump to exorcise the Twin Towers? Grief is tactless. It’s post-embarrassment. Cloverfield is the joke you tell at a funeral because there are no right words to say.

CLOVERFIELD (2008)

BACK COVER SYNOPSIS: From visionary producer J.J. Abrams and director Matt Reeves comes the worldwide sensation of nonstop terror and suspense everyone is talking about.

FILM REVIEW: “Cloverfield” is one of those movies that hits the monster-movie genre mark on the head, providing escapist fun and thrills, but managing to do it in a very unique style by utilising the “Blair-Witch” home video technique to tell the story (but doing it much better than “Blair-Witch”). In this film, a monster the size of the Empire State Building terrorises New York City, destroying everything in its path. As a growing battle ensures between the monster and the army, a small group of New Yorkers, who just happen to have a handicam with them, document the whole incident from their point of view as they try to escape the bedlam. The film is a lot of fun, and although it does not always believably work, the unique style in which it is shot combined with the monster genre trademarks make for some strong, entertaining viewing.
The first Act, and probably the weakest part of the film, is the set up of all the characters at a going away party. It is a little too long, and is by and large filled with teenage melodramas. The style and interesting use of flashbacks that occur when the cameraman stops filming to rewind and watch some footage are established quite well and orientate you in to the film successfully while giving you some back-story on the characters, even though some of the dialogue and interactions are far from interesting. The film kicks in to high gear when the party guests experience what feels like an earthquake; they go to the roof to see what is going on and see an explosion on a skyscraper in the distance. What follows is the best scene in the film when for several minutes, all hell breaks loose, culminating in the head of the Statue of Liberty flying through the air and crashing to a halt on a New York street. From then on, we follow the core group of characters, and the cameraman filming everything, as they try to escape from New York.
The monster is used just the right amount throughout the film. For the first half of the film, you see a tail here, or an arm there; an exciting sequence on the Brooklyn Bridge when all you see is the monster's tail crash down on the bridge, killing off what we believe to be one of the major characters in the film and destroying the bridge is shocking and quite scary because only seeing a flash of something out of the corner of your eye (which is how this scene is presented) is often scarier than seeing it in full detail. As the film continues, the monster is revealed more and more, with the biggest moment occurring when our unfortunate cameraman finds himself at the feet of the monster; he gets several seconds to film the monster before getting eaten. I must say however, I would love to get the model of camera that was used because it manages to survive the biting motions inside the monster's mouth, before falling to the ground and perfectly framing itself on the face of the cameraman who is now dead. Ridiculous, but it is all part of the fun.
Director Matt Reeves shows some clever inventiveness to the staging of the scenes to maintain the home video feel without, for the most part, looking as if it were staged (although there are some sequences which are a little too convenient to have been caught off the cuff). He manages to surprise us on many occasions, particularly in two sequences where we see off-spring of the monster rolling off its back in news footage, as well as the sequence where one of the characters explodes after being bitten by one of the off-spring. Also, his use of night-vision in the subway attack sequence is brilliant, where we only see glimpses of the monsters here and there, but there is a lot of scuffling and fighting on the soundtrack, making for an effectively tense and eerie atmosphere.
“Cloverfield” is ideally suited to DVD; the jerky home-video shots were quite uncomfortable to watch on a cinema screen but are quite enjoyable in the comfort of your own home. Coupled with the fact that it was shot on high-def and looks raw lends itself to the DVD medium perfectly.
If there is a down-side to this film is that some of the shots are too convenient to have been filmed handicam style. There was probably no way around this, but some of the shots in the second half of the film which manage to frame the monster in just the right way stand out immediately as not being spontaneous. Another problem in watching the film is the idea of it being a gimmick; even at 81 minutes, the style of the film can became annoying to your senses (which would have been exacerbated if you had seen it in the cinema).
“Cloverfield” is fun entertainment, shot in a unique style that takes full advantage of the monster-movie conventions while delivering the thrills and excitement you would expect.

TECHNICAL REVIEW: Although this film received a theatrical release in cinemas, it was ideally suited for the DVD medium. Shot on high-definition digital video with home video style camera angles, the film is perfectly represented on DVD, with a fantastic video transfer that takes advantage of the medium within which the film was shot. The jerky camera movements appear more crisp and clear on a television screen as opposed to a cinema screen. The audio transfer is spectacular, making full use of the surrounds, particularly whenever the monster shows up. The sequence where all hell first breaks loose culminating in the decapitation of the State of Liberty is well worth experiencing on your system. Overall, an excellent transfer.

EXTRAS REVIEW: The extras package on this DVD is decent. The first disc contains an informative audio commentary by director Matt Reeves, as well as a “Cloverfield Supplementary Files” feature which when activated, will populate an icon on the screen while you watch the film, giving you access to a specific featurette associated with the scene you are watching (with over twenty featurettes covering everything from casting to behind the scenes material). The second disc contains more traditional extras such as a Making-Of Documentary and featurettes, deleted and extended scenes with optional audio commentaries, as well as an alternate ending with optional audio commentary. Overall, a decent complement of extras which will given you a good insight in to what made this film.

BOTTOM LINE: Worth having in the collection.

FILM RATING: 8/10 -- EXTRAS RATING: 8/10 -- OVERALL DVD RATING: 8/10 

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Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

CLOVERFIELD (2008)

BOTTOM LINE: It's the Blair-Witch version of Godzilla - ridiculous in many parts but very cool and unlike 'Blair Witch', this film actually pays off on its premise.

THE GOOD: Hollywood finally gets to do their own 'Blair Witch' and surprisingly, 'Cloverfield' is superior to the film it draws so heavily from, at least in style. 'Blair Witch' didn't really have a pay-off (ie the threat was always suggested, never revealed). 'Cloverfield' doesn't show the monsters much but at the right moments, it shows the monsters in dramatic style. The main monster itself is ridiculous but because the camera work is so shaky you don't really notice and is actually quite nasty and scary in some moments. The story is by and large irrelevant - this film is all about mayhem and destruction and the film doesn't disappoint. After getting an introduction to the characters, the first attack scene comes out of nowhere and is one of the coolest you're likely to see, with the head of the Statue of Liberty smashing through buildings before rolling down the street and coming to a stop at the base of the apartment building the characters inhabit. At this point, you hardly see the monster at all. This is especially borne out in the next attack sequence where in a flash of a second, the monster's tail comes crashing down on the Brooklyn Bridge, killing lots of people and making a terrifying sequence as people scramble to safety. The filmmakers very cleverly defy conventions by keeping you guessing about who will survive. Characters are built up to seem important but then end up as monster-fodder. Some that don't appear important at all become the central characters. But the smartest move of all was to explain nothing about the monster, how it attacks or why it seems to have nasty offspring that roll off its back. One very creepy scene revolves around one of the girls who was bitten by one of the smaller monsters (in another separate, clever scene in a dark subway), she starts to become dizzy and begins bleeding through her eyes. The army soldiers grab her and take her away from everyone else where she proceeds to spontaneously combust, with blood exploding in every direction. It's not over the top in execution but it is surprising and nasty. I think what I enjoyed the most is that the monster was used in just the right way and provided some genuinely thrilling sequences. 'Cloverfield' is a lot of fun.

THE BAD: This film is a gimmick. Part of the gimmick is that this cleverly edited film 'appears' to be random footage shot of the events that occur. That's not the bad part - the problem lies in seeing really shaky camera footage on a giant screen. If you get motion sickness or migraines easily, don't watch this film in the cinema. Also, I'd love to have the brand of camera that was used to get the 'footage'. It gets bashed around so much, and at one point, ends up in the monster's mouth before falling out and magically landing on the ground next to the dead victim, perfectly framing his dead face... and it still works! One hell of a camera. The end credits have some bizarrely inappropriate music. The only other problem is that the opening scenes which establish the characters went on for far too long. There's only one reason you're watching a film like this and that's not to see the melodramas of the main characters.

RATING: 7.5/10

Todd Murphy <br />
http://www.allaboutmovies.net

Cloverfield

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see a city get destroyed from a first person point of view? Well then today is your lucky day. Cloverfield is just like any other generic monster movie in creation, with a bit of a twist. The entire action is seen from the view of a handicam recorder. It is this cheap gimmick that actually gives this movie a one up over other films of the genre. As far as the plot goes, there is a monster attacking New York City and we get to follow a small group of friends who are trying to escape. There's also a love story thrown in just to give the movie some substance. Didn't I say it was generic?

In the movie we see a lot of the same old, same old. People die, people are crying, more people die, the military comes, even more die, so on and so forth. But due to the cunning mind of JJ Abrams, all of these things are seen in an unchartered way with the use of a handicam. It is this strategem that manages to pull the viewer into New York City and truly feel the horrors that you've seen so many characters go through in other movies of this sort. There was actually a point in the film where I literally jumped out of my seat because of the realism of an explosion that had just taken place. But at times, this camera ploy hurt the film and made it less enjoyable. Times in the film when the director wanted to explore the love story, the handicam angle really removed you from the film and hinders your ability to enjoy it.

There is also one more very important caveat that you must take into account. Those with motion sickness should steer clear of this film. Oftentimes while watching it, I began to feel dizzy and had to look away for a minute or two.

There isn't much to comment on as far as acting goes. Every performer pretty much accomplised the "scared onlooker" role. One thing that impressed me was the actual appearance of the monster. When a new monster movie is released, there is always a fear that the creators will render the beast in a silly fashion. Luckily, this was not the case here. Adding to the list of positives, a short running time ensures that Cloverfield and its handicam gimmick does not wear itself out. Overall, Cloverfield was a solid monster flick, with a few scares, and lots of heart pumping action to keep you interested. My rating (7/10)

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Cloverfield

I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t know how this film will be on DVD, I only saw it once and it was enough, I saw in in the cinema theatre. I haven’t seen it again not because it wasn’t good, but because it was great! Confused? Let me explain...

I went to this movie with my friend when it was out and we were amazed! After the film I think we even sat in our chairs for a few more minutes until we got up...maybe we were afraid that outside there was nothing alive and only chaos...and then we both agreed on something: This kind of film was only terrific in cinema, surrounded with these great speakers and the biggest possible screen, but at home on DVD it may lose a bit of its charm and terror...

The way this film is filmed you get the feeling it is you running in the streets of New-York and you actually feel scared for your life and soon you’ll be running outside to an open space away from everything.

The feeling is similar to that of the film “The Blair Witch Project” in that the film is recorded through a camera and is all documented as a real event. Well, this is a great film, maybe one of the most terrifying films I have ever seen because the feeling you get while watching it is that you yourself are in danger and need to run for cover from what ever is out there, and as the film continues you’ll see what is out there.

The special effects are great. Buildings falling apart, fire everywhere, the Statue of Liberty with no head (seen it in a lot of films, always scary to see it again) and more great scenes and effects and computer graphics in this film.

All in all, see this film on DVD and maybe I’m wrong and it will be terrific in DVD as well, it was great in cinema, so maybe a good movie stays this way at home as well...

Jessie