Cloverfield [2007] - Paramount Home Entertainment

great entertainment

imho, it's the things that other people hated about this film that made me love it:

the acting was believable. i think that i would make a whimpering noise if i suddenly found myself on the ground with a huge monster standing above me.

the dialogue was believable. in real life people generally don't soliloquy like shakespeare, or describe ever innermost emotion, or philosophise or have great one-liners every minute - they usually just talk rubbish, like they do in this film.

the script was believable. it was what you could reasonably expect to happen if a half-kilometer high monster invaded new york.

there IS humour in the film, if you aren't po-faced.

the direction was tight. it moved forward. it did what it said on the tin, and on the tin it said "monster movie". watching it i felt tense.

there was no swearing in the film. you could watch it with your granny.

in short, a greatly entertaining film.

Bad..........very bad

The camera work was annoying - do we really need to feel like we are on a boat in the pacific during a storm?

However possibly the biggest problem was that I didn't like any of the characters and didn't care if they lived or died. As a result I didn't want to follow the plot and couldn't wait for the end.

After all the hype I was so disappointed, not what I expected from Mr JJ Abrahams!

Absolutely brilliant

I have been a follower of horror for over 26 years and have seen countless horror movies. From the very best to the very worst. Cloverfield rates amongst my very best. Why...? Because it brings something different to the horror genre. The last two - three years have been like a new dawn for horror. Horror I believe is being re-invented. The age old blood and guts with a poor story line is not as prevalant as before. Horror is now advertising itself to the thinking man/woman. This is most definately where Cloverfield comes in. It provides a good setting, sets the tone and then BANG your in, the horror begins. The film runs at a good pace , is consistent and the camera angles are superb. It takes the blair witch cinematography and puts it on a whole new level. You find yourself twisting your neck angling your body as the camera moves with the pace of the charachters it follows. There are shocks that happen which you just don't see coming, leaving you in anxious anticipation of more to follow. What a film!!!.
Trust me, you'll want to put this in your horror collection.

Original idea, great film

When I saw this in the cinema, I was blown away by it. You were left with more questions after the film than at the start, which you'd imagine would be annoying, but there was something that I loved about that. The camcorder, of course, made this film most effective. They describe it as 'Godzilla meets Blair Witch', and I can safely say that if you like both of those two films, you'll love this one. The fact that it had a cast list that you wouldn't have heard of helped it to be successful; the idea of this film was to get a first-person view of normal civilians reacting to a crisis, so it would be strange to feature Tom Cruise and George Clooney. You can see that the director has covered every corner to squeeze as much as possible out of this film to make it realistic (apart from the giant monster terrorising New York city).

If I was rating this film straight after exiting the cinema, I would have given it a hands-down 5 stars. The one thing that is holding me back now that I own it, is the fact that it is not nearly as entertaining on the second viewing as it is on the first. The most thrilling element of Cloverfield is that you are watching it without knowing much, so you don't know what's gonna happen next. It's part of the novelty of using a camcorder, that you have no idea what is going to suddenly appear in front of the camera. I think that a film should be thrilling and entertaining every time you watch it for it to be a real classic.

Apart from that, though, a very clever and well made film.

Initially interesting - ultimately irritating

I loved the premise - the discovery of an amateur tape covering a major event. I bought into that and sat back to watch previously unseen footage of a monster attacking New York (well, we've all seen it before in some guise!)

I didn't mind the relatively slow build-up as it set the scene for what was obviously going to be an "everyday hero rescues gal" plot, and when the monster arrived (via sound effects and even more shaking of the camera) the tension switched in nicely.

It was nice to just see glimpses of the "big beastie" as it wandered around shouldering buildings to the ground and generally causing a bit of a nuisance, as it left something to the imagination. Very reminiscent of the classic horror movies where you just saw a shadow or a silhouette of the monster. It left the viewer wondering "what is it?" rather than the usual "is that it!" which is often the case with CGI monsters. Curiosity was then satisfied right at the end with a nice shot of the beastie having a bit of a snack!

Rather cleverly, the premise of the film meant that the quality of the acting didn't really matter, assuming you'd bought into the home-movie idea.

So, all in all, very well done, different from the usual rampaging monster stuff, and quite gripping ... with a couple of exceptions!

The wobbly camera and the constant reminders that it was amateur footage became a bit tiresome after a while, but that paled into insignificance when compared to the unbelievably irritating dialogue from the brainless wonder behind the camera! Three quarters of the way through, I wondered if the film had been a victim of the Hollywood screenwriters' strike as the muppet cameraman simply reverted to saying "Oh my God! Oh my God! What's happening? Oh my God! Oh my God!" over and over and over again whenever there was the slightest pause in the action. This particular reviewer let out a silent cheer when the big beastie (who was clearly equally irritated!) shut the cameraman up once and for all! Ah, peace at last ... and then the film ended within a couple of minutes!

Overall, worth a look-see if you get the chance as it's different enough to be interesting ... but prepare yourself to be rooting for the monster by the end!