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Rating of
4/4
The First Solid Film of 2008
Franz Patrick - wrote on 03/08/2008
There was supposedly a lot of hype surrounding this film but I never felt any of it. Maybe it's because I am not that involved with the mainsteam or maybe, unknowingly, I didn't want to hype it within myself. Either way, I think it's a great accomplishment for several reasons. I didn't expect to be scared at all but once the first earthquake started, I was completely involved. I didn't mind the chaotic dialogue, the shaky camera, and its lack of realism; since the whole film was seen through a video camera, I felt like I was there with them, running from death itself--everything else didn't matter. People complain a lot about the lack of steadiness of the camera because it made them dizzy. In other films, it would've been a disaster but in this movie, it was flawless. I appreciated the …
Rating of
1.5/4
Over The Top Cinéma vérité
Nick - wrote on 02/04/2008
I was highly anticipating this movie from the first time I saw the trailer. The trailer was done perfect, not giving you enough to tell you what was really happening in New York City, making you want to see it. I knew going in that the camera style was from a first person perspective, documentary type of style. This technique can really draw you into the movie and could have made the movie great. Unfortunately, they took it too far. The camera was extremely shaky all the time, making it difficult for me to even watch. I have never experienced any kind of motion sickness in my life, not from cars, planes, boats, or anything. But this was enough to affect me. If they could have toned that down, (which I think they definitely could have and still had the same effect), the movie …
Rating of
3/4
Cloverfield: Shaken and Disturbed
Chris Kavan - wrote on 02/04/2008
Once you get around the first-person hand-held camera perspective, Cloverfield becomes a very personal, highly effective horror film. It's a little shaky, but anything that makes you feel like part of the action gets the blood pumping more rather than less.
What starts off like any random party you've ever attended turns into a classic survival horror experience, complete with sudden explosions, things coming out of the dark and plenty of death. There is a lot reminiscent of the 9/11 attacks early on - especially in paper that falls like snow and dirt-covered people after a building collapse. I won't say it isn't crass, but it serves the purpose of bringing back memories that are more terrifying than anything Hollywood could imagine.
From everything that was said, I wasn't …
Rating of
2.5/4
A Monster Headache
BryanFury - wrote on 02/02/2008
It started off weak and ended much weaker. I really did not see the significance of using a single cameraman’s perspective of the whole New York City chaos. Having the front row seats to all that mayhem maybe scary for those actors but sadly it didn’t worked for me. It just felt a little old and the whole thing kind of looses steam from all of the running and the bad camera work. Having seen the best documentary/movie “The Blair Witch Project” means anything that is not as good or even better is going to be considered less or rather worse even. So that's pretty much it, Cloverfield is not as good as everyone thought it was. There are a few good points like the fact that everybody dies and the monster, creature or whatever it was did not. Which is probably reason enough to see it …
Rating of
3.5/4
The Godzilla Documentary: Cloverfield
Alex - wrote on 01/23/2008
[update: Just saw this again for the second time. It was as good as the first (well, almost - I was not in a huge theater). A real go-getter of a movie. It may not stand the test of time with many people. But for me it will. Good script, good acting, and the non Hollywood ending topped it off.]
The good thing about Cloverfield is that it is a complete experience. To be more specific, from when the teaser trailer first hit the internet and theaters, it sucked movie lovers in and it got them talking. Then JJ Abrams name was attached to it (though he merely produced it and neither wrote it or directed it as many would have you to believe). This stirred up more buzz and excitement. And finally, the movie was released after numerous promo pieces detailing destruction were …
Rating of
4/4
Review - Cloverfield (2008)
Delorted - wrote on 01/21/2008
Since 1933 and the release of “King Kong,” people have been fascinated by giant creatures destroying cities. In 1954 things got even more interesting with a giant lizard named Godzilla attacking Tokyo, Japan. In 1998, an American named Roland Emmerich decided to make his own Godzilla movie, with the creature attacking New York City, but nobody really liked his vision, and the monster was even killed off by the Japanese in “Godzilla: Final Wars.” Since then, we haven’t had much going on in the field of giant monsters, but last year J.J. Abrams, creator of television series “Lost,” decided America needed its own, more original monster. Thus, on January 18, 2008, his vision became a reality.
“Cloverfield,” broadcast as a federal case file composed of a video tape found …
Rating of
3.5/4
Funny, action-packed and a lot of fun to watch
Josh C - wrote on 01/19/2008
Pretty freaking cool. Those are the first words that come into mind when thinking about the movie. The first 30 minutes was all dialog and no action, though I could have watched 90 minutes of just that. It was funny, witty and really well done; so I didn't feel that it was fake and too Hollywood. After the action/disaster started happening my only thought was, "this is freaking cool" and unfortunately, "no one would still be carrying the camera still."
That was really one of the only flaws in this movie and it was a necessary flaw. The camera work needed to be decent in order to keep the audience captivated and I think it did it in a way that made it both believable and made it seem raw and armaturish. The movie of course reminded me of Blair Witch Project but the alien that was …
Rating of
3/4
The Most Effective Horror Film in Quite Some Time
newmans_own - wrote on 01/18/2008
A surefire marketing campaign ongoing for months has already insured producer J.J. Abrams’s disaster film CLOVERFIELD’s initial success; most of its audience will likely know next to nothing about the actual film before seeing it. In this day and age that is a feat in itself, but does CLOVERFIELD live up to the hype? The answer is mostly yes. Taking the hand-camera “realism” popularized with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and pushing it to the highest possible level, the film puts the viewer in the characters’ shoes as never before and it sticks strictly to that code, which is one of its biggest assets. CLOVERFIELD is all about being in the moment and doesn’t waste time with answers, all leading up to one hell of a thrillride.
The filmmakers seemed to hold realism above all else; …
