Great Movie

Rating: 9/10 (18 July 2012)

Although Cloverfield is filled with action from the beginning to the end, its story seems to be the least important aspect as it focuses only on the fact that New York is being attacked by alien entities. Because of this, Cloverfield does not require much attention to understand the overall plot. Therefore, this cinematography is clearly intended to showcase a new approach in film style, not to depict an effective story or theme. With this in mind, Cloverfield's straightforward story makes this movie quite enjoyable because it engrosses me with the impressive visual effects and the danger that the protagonists are being exposed to without keeping track of the dialogue or the story sequence.
This revolutionary yet classical film starts with the armed forces' description specifying that a personal video showcasing the inexplicable incident was recovered. Then, it continues with a vague homemade video of Robert Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) waking up after spending the night with his girlfriend Beth McIntyre (Odette Annable). Then, it suddenly cuts to the preparations of a surprise goodbye party for Robert. The man in charge of recording the party is Hudson Platt (T. J. Miller) who is only seen less than a minute throughout the movie. Right in the middle of the party, a harmless earthquake seems to hit New York. After that, the protagonist notice that they are being attacked by aliens. Worried about his girlfriend's safety, Robert, along with his friends cross the streets of New York in order to save her. From this point on, the climax consists of a series of impediments to save Robert's girlfriend.
One of the major key elements that makes Cloverfield effective is definitely the suspense involved. First of all, the film's art cover, which is the aftermath of a violent war in the iconic New York landscape, implies that its content is about violence of some sort. After that, Cloverfield starts with a romantic scene of Robert and Beth waking up after having spent the night together. Oddly enough, the film suddenly cuts to a party. With all this in mind, these scenes tend to get a little hazy, but at the same time these unusual scenes cause me to speculate on how or when the violence is going to occur.
Another important key element is the innovative homemade style film. This transcendent and unprecedented style of cinematography brings a completely new approach of the monotonous theme of alien attacks.
Cloverfield's story is simple, yet it does not affect the outcome of the entertainment experience since it is filled with action throughout the movie. This film is intended to amaze the audience by showing the extraterrestrial creature as life-like and as gruesome as possible, producing realistic war and alien sounds, showing the destructive missiles of the army being fired one after the other, and most importantly show the protagonists experience all these situations for a heartfelt reason. In addition, the brief dialogues and the few characters are an enormous advantage when it comes to straightforwardness. Throughout the movie, new characters are introduced; however, they do not alter the simplicity or the sequence of the movie.
It would be remiss not to mention some of the flaws that seems to impede the overall faultlessness of Cloverfield. First of all, one of the biggest enigmas in Cloverfield is the video clips of Robert and Beth being together. These clips are irrelevant and inopportune; therefore, they produce confusion. Moreover, the reason for the extraterrestrial entities' attack is never explained, nor their origin, or the reason they invade the earth. Maybe the director's aim was to create an even greater confusion to increase the intensity of the suspense, but it resulted in a big mystery that was never solved.