Cloverfield Review

As I said in my last post tonight I was look enough to go and see the premier of the JJ Abrams monster movie Cloverfield. I have a friend who work with various movie companies and helps them promote their movies. So I've seen a lot of really good premiers and I've seen some really bad ones. Tonight sadly was the latter category, it lacked in a pretty wide variety of ways. So am going to try and put aside all the internet hype surrounding this movie. While giving this movie a fair review based on what I saw.

Director: Matt Reeves
Writer:Drew Goddard (written by)
Release Date:18 January 2008 (Canada)
Genre: Action / Sci-Fi / Thriller more
Tagline: Some Thing Has Found Us
Plot Outline:
Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people.

1 out of 5 stars

The rest of this review will be behind the more at the bottom of the page. Because lets face it the movie is not even out yet, so it will contain spoilers and the last thing I want to do is wreck the movie for anyone.

Alright now lets start with the basic premises, a monster has attacked New York. All a pretty decent concept for a monster movie all in all, it tells the traditional monster story in the background of the movie as the military tries to fight off or kill the monster. While focusing the camera on a brave group of survivors, trying to do what they feel is the right thing.

• Now that I've mentioned the camera, I'll take a minute and talk about that. The whole film is told from the point of view of a Handi-Cam and an amateur camera man. Which means the whole film is jumpy, shakey, and darts from side to side really fast at times. Some what like the Blair Witch project did it many years ago. So with that in mind if you are prone to motion sickness or vertigo take some gravall to settle you stomach before going and expect a headache when you leave. I know I had a pretty nasty one and so did my wife who left half way thru the movie so she didn't throw up.

So after the initial monster attack our make a break for it and try and leave the city by heading out across the midtown bridge. Its there that we get are first sight of the monster. A massive tentacle takes out the whole bridge. Sadly we're not able to see the monster or most of the scene because it is blocked by the heads of various people in the crowd. It's here that we learn about the hurt friend.

later we find ourselves watching a new cast, and we learn that the monster has what appear to be debris falling from it and that the debris starts to movie and attack people. These little creatures move about attacking people and we learn later infect people. But at no point during the movie is any of this really explained.

• After the bad camera angles, the next area the move falls short is the story. It offers us all sort of snips of information about the monster the majority of which really doesn't make much of a difference in the story and none it is really explained enough that we the views true get to understand what is going on or why.

The heroes find themselves hiding out in the subway tunnel to avoid the monster and the military. Then decide to sneak across the city by traveling through the subway. This is where we get some great shots of the little monsters.

• This is one area where the movie excelled. The special effects for the monster and for the military were very realistic and looked great. But then again it's a lot easier to make something look good when it's only seen on a bouncy screen and at a bad camera angle.

After a while they do get to the friends apartment and face some interesting challenges there. Nothing that was really good or bad it just moved the story line along. The movie offers some more exciting scenes after the rescue and finally some really good shots of the monster. Then it fades to back and ends.

• The ending is my last negative, when I pay to go see a movie at today's prices I expect to see a movie. 70 minutes just doesn't cut it in my opinion. I would have been pretty upset had I had to pay for the movie tonight.

JJ Abrams had a great concept for a movie and it could have been so much better. Instead he turned it in to a gimmick movie that will be remembered because it's camera angle and the headaches people had when they left..