Film Review- Cloverfield
MAJOR SPOILERS:
I just went to see Cloverfield today, and it is awesome. I can tell you that it is everything that it should be. The monster was awesome, the parasites were awesome, and it felt like it was really happening. This is one of my favourite movies now, and you have to see it in theaters to get the full effect of it.
Cloverfield is a monster movie directed by Matt Reeves, and produced by J.J. Abrams. The trailer for Cloverfield premiered at Transformers, although it was without a title, and it only gave the date of release. The name was announced in November, 2007 along with a new trailer. The monster in this movie is completely new, and is not a Japanese monster, like Godzilla or King Kong. The monster in the movie was kept a complete secret, so no one knew what it was until the movie was released.
Characters-
The characters are ones we can really connect with, because they are like real, normal people with normal problems. They happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, but are just normal people trying to survive a horrifying event. The characters are also played by relative unknowns, so that helps us connect with them as well.
Story-
Our main character’s (Rob’s) friends are throwing him a going away party. His girlfriend comes, and they have a fight, and she leaves. Suddenly a monster attacks the city. Rob and several of his friends try to escape the island, but are attacked again, and Rob’s brother dies. They then try to get to Beth’s (Rob’s girlfriend’s) apartment, because he received a message from her, and she was in trouble. They try to get to her, but are once again attacked by the monster, with another one of his friends dying. Eventually they get to her apartment, and save her. They then try and get to the airlift to get out of the city, because it is going to be carpet bombed in an attempt to kill the monster. One of them makes it into a helicopter, and escapes while the rest of them have to wait for the next one. They get in the next one, and are leaving the city when the monster attacks them and brings them down. HUD is killed by the monster, and Rob and Beth hide and use the camera to film a sort of “goodbye”. The camera is dropped under some rocks and Beth and Rob die in the explosion. The film ends with a video from when Rob and Beth went to Coney Island, and you can vaguely see something fall into the water.
Location and Filming-
The filming was done in New York, and it was done with a hand-held video camera. This makes it all the more realistic, as we see it from the characters point of view. Without the element of the hand-held camera, the movie would have failed. However, the camera successfully created sequences that felt real and terrifying.
Monster-
The monster “Cloverfield” is a unique one indeed. It looks like a bat, praying mantis and a sloth mixed together. It has two long, double jointed forearms, and two pairs of little arms on its chest. It has a long tail, and hunched back legs. The monster also has little parasites clinging to it, which drop off and attack humans. The parasites are white and pale, have many legs, long jaws and two pairs of eyes. When these things bite you, you start to feel dizzy. Then you feel sick and bleed from the mouth, eyes and nose. Soon after, your torso will explode. The monsters (s) were very cool, and definitely made the movie worthwhile. All these descriptions are what I remember and could see, so they may be a little inaccurate. Here’s a pic of what the monster looks like (pretty close to it anyway):
[link] Here is a relatively accurate pic of the parasites:
[link]My Rating:
10/10
This film is everything I expected it to be, and was definitely worth the wait. You have to see it in theaters for the full effect of it. The monster was really cool, and was a constant threat throughout the entire movie. The movie seemed very real, and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. An amazing movie.
Euphoric
Distracted
Neutral
Satisfied
