Excellent American Monster Movie

Rating: 10/10 (3 March 2012)

Cloverfield is an engaging, intense and thrilling ride that takes about ten minutes to introduce our characters and set up the relationships between them before kicking off the chaos and never letting up throughout the remainder of the film. I was blown away by the effectiveness of shooting this story from the first person perspective. What could have been a typical monster movie is upgraded in intensity by making the viewer feel as if they are going through the same situations that the characters are. And by giving us likable characters that we care about also goes a long way to invest the viewers in the story. The story itself is fairly simple, but it works well enough for the purpose of the movie, which is paced at a near break neck speed. The writing is well done, giving us a few clever moments and a few moments of levity, largely provided by T.J. Miller as Hud, who gives nearly his entire performance off camera. The effects are the real star of this movie bringing the monster and a destruction ravaged Manhattan to life. Strongly recommended for anyone who is a genre fan, a first person perspective film fan, or anyone looking for a hell of a ride.