At The Movies: Cloverfield

Cloverfield
AKA: The Movie with a Million Alternate Titles

I had the good fortune to see Cloverfield this weekend. The film, produced by J.J. Abrams of LOST fame, was quite possibly one of the most refreshing and headache inducing takes on the city gets attacked by a giant monster genre that I've seen in year.

Let me start by saying this: Forget what you thought this movie was going to be. Forget all the things the creature could have been. It's not Godzilla. It's not Voltron. It's not a psychological Lovecraftian Cthulhu movie. It's not a giant mutant whale (man that could have been awesome too, and that concept art ruled).

Cloverfield is the Department of Defense designation given to a massive, monstrous creature which laid waste to Manhattan. The premise of this flick, and I'm sure most of you know already know, is that the story is an amalgam of footage that occurred during that attack and the ensuing chaos from the point of view of survivors as they try to save others and escape with that story driving the plot and the monster attack as the backdrop. This is a very different spin than we're used to. The creature is very much like the smoke monster from LOST in that you don't know what it is, why it's doing what it's doing but when you see it bad things happen.

I won't spoil the movie for you. The shaky cam takes some getting used to but there are lulls in it where the camera is relatively steady. The digital effects are pretty good for the most part. The acting isn't the best, but it's not horrible by any means. The creature effects, those were pretty good. From the giant creature, which you do get to see quite a bit of, to the tiny spider-crab parasites that fall off of it, there's no way you can go home and say that you didn't get to see anything creepy and downright wicked. I actually had a seafood dinner after the movie to get a bit of revenge.

Fans of Abrams work will likely enjoy this movie. People who want tons of plot resolution and back story will probably not enjoy this movie. People who easily get motion sick will probably not enjoy this movie. I loved it, though. It's different enough and I'm more than willing to give it a second shot and watch it again to see what I missed the first time.

Give it a shot, you might like it.

I give it an 8.5 / 10