Terrific found-footage thrill ride

Rating: 7/10 (31 October 2015)

Directed by Matt Reeves and produced by J.J Abrams, this found-footage sci-fi thriller follows a group of friends who vacation to New York City for a going-away party for their friend Rob who is moving to Japan. The party is suddenly interrupted when the city becomes under attack by a giant monster, who destroys the Statue of Liberty and wrecks havoc to the city. When one of the friends' lover is trapped inside a building, they must sprawl across town in attempt to save her while surviving the massive monster mayhem that devastated the city. Featuring the cast of Michael-Stahl David, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J Miller, Jason Vogel, and Odette Annable, this Godzilla and Blair Witch Project mix packs a punch of brilliant special effects and immense scares and thrills, but is executed with shaky camera-work that can get frustrating at times.
This film was met with critical attraction before its release with its poster showing the dismembered Statue of Liberty, which was also shown in the trailer. This film does succeed on living up to its hype. Director Matt Reeves succeeds on keeping this film moving and giving the script a vision. From the point when the monsters began attacking, the film showers with fantastic special effects and CGI with building collapsing and numerous explosions that leave the city devastated with massive debris, hencing a highly intense atmosphere with plenty of action that resemble the Godzilla movies to polish it. The audience awarded with some incredible thrills and edge-of-your-seat scares, as well as some occasional blood and gore that borders on the R rating. There are, however, some flaws that are worthy pointing, the shaky camera-work in particular. As this is found- footage film, the camera-work gets really shaky and often quite nauseating. It can be especially pesky for the action scenes, making it somewhat difficult to tell what is going on. Overall, it didn't take away from its eerie atmosphere too much.
Cloverfield may not the best found-footage film, but certainly is one of them. However, I do not recommend this film to those who have grown despised of shaky camera-work. Otherwise, this film would make a good pick.