Perfect...

Rating: 9/10 (26 January 2008)

This review contains SPOILERS I watched it today. It was released in Portugal under the name of "Codename: Cloverfield". Good thing the cinema I went to has special rooms for these films (it's called Cinema City, and it has lots of rooms specialized on certain movie types: there's a room with chairs that have liftable arms for the romantic movies, a room with about 6 speakers on each chair for horror movies, a room with hydraulic chairs for motion simulators ("Cloverfield" was also available on that room, but I had to pay another 3 euros for it, and my back is not very well cuz I had a though PE class yesterday) and a room with a 4-story-sized screen, just for examples. I watched it on one of the "Horror movies rooms", and let me tell you it was an experience of a lifetime. I might miss some classes the next week to watch it again.
I liked the beginning. That whole intro with the party preparations, I mean. It was good for us to meet the characters and a basic storyline for each of them: Hud's crush on Marlena, Jason and Lily's relationship, Rob and Beth's friendship/love. It was very enjoyable to see all the characters reunited on that party, dancing and having fun, probably for the last time on their life.
Then, the monster attacks. And it seems that everything happens to the characters, each and every type of death seems to occur: Jason gets smashed by it's tail, Marlena's stomach blows up thanks to the parasites, Hud takes a visit to the monster's mouth... and the movie itself wraps all these events and many more (I loved the scene where they go to Beth's apartment to rescue her, and the building is resting on it's side on another) in a way that when the characters are resting or just staying put, we don't feel like they're resting at all, because we know the monster is out there, we hear its growls, its steps, debris everywhere.
Another thing that surprised me was the monster itself and its parasites. Many people didn't like it. I, on the contrary, felt extremely satisfied with it. I loved its concept, its body... it was a good surprise to me, and I felt like it could be a real menace in every environment. It's not a giant lizard, it's not a giant shark, it is a giant "something that we've never seen before and we're not sure about how dangerous it is, but we know it's immune to our weaponry, it is incredibly strong and it leaves behind a huge amount of parasites that will make you blow up from the inside if you're bitten". And, in my humble opinion, that is pretty much more terrifying than a Japanese giant lizard who just walks on Manhattan destroying buildings for the sake of finding somewhere to nest and breed.
Also, another thing to mention are the sound effects: this movie, like "War of the Worlds", will lose a lot when it is released on DVD/Blu-Ray, unless you have a home cinema system and the volume on the max. Each growl of the monster, each step it took, each time Hud fell or each time the camera was stroke by debris, the sound effects made my chair tremble. Although I am not sure if it was the chair trembling or if it was just me shaking with the events I was watching.
As for the ending, which was a deception to many people, I felt like it was as good as any ending. It also ended up with a small romantic touch, that wrapped up the film in a nice way. When the final credits started rolling, I said to myself: "Classic... perfect in many ways". And after all, it was perfect.