Good, but could have been lots better.

Rating: 5/10 (20 January 2008)

Saw Cloverfield this weekend. I was really excited about it as I have been a huge fan of J.J. Abrams. However, I did find the shooting style to be extremely distracting. I mean I agree that it added a certain visceral experience of really being there, but after a while it became obnoxious and distracting. I just think that there were better ways to tell the same story with out being so sickening with the motion of the camera. All in all I would recommend seeing it as long as you aren't given to bouts of motions sickness.
The other problem is that it becomes hard to believe that with such harrowing things happening to these people that they would make the choice to continue filming it. I mean understand the need to suspend disbelief, but this was a convention that was just a little much. At one point Hud, one of the Characters is told to put the camera down, he films himself saying if this the last they see of him he is dead, but his putting down the camera doesn't look any different than when he did have the camera. I can't believe that if people are that scared, that they would make the effort to continue filming especially while trying to outrun something that is trying to bite their heads off.