Over Hyped

Rating: 3/10 (17 January 2008)

What can I say about Cloverfield? Well, first off, I didn't like it. I'm not trying to say it was a failure all together because it will surely rank in the dollars from Hollywood movie goers. The one thing that MUST be credited about it is the films promotion, the film was using this "unknown " monster as publicity and I thought that was amazingly well done and it was truly the talk of the town.
As for why I did not enjoy it, there are several reasons. First, the unoriginal idea whether it be a monster attacking a city or simply the portable home camera usage. I thought both of these ideas were perfected in other films and all around executed much better. Secondly, the "scare tactics" used. These were by far the most predictable and by the book as you can get. They seemed to follow the "Hand Book: How to Make a Scary Movie" and made a checklist. Restricted camera/view? Check. Dark environment? Check. And the worst of them all, LOUD SOUNDS? CHECK, and this was excessively done, almost to the point of putting your hands on your ears (and no, I'm not 60+ years old). Not to mention the non-diegetic sounds they used in the tunnels that relates to nothing around the characters. It's as if they found the sequence not suspenseful enough so they added their own sounds? Way to break their own portrayal.
One thing I will give this film is the juxtaposition with the 9/11 attack and how they either intentionally or unintentionally mimicked parts of real home footage taping the attack. This is definitely a better use of a scaring effect as 9/11 is still close in our hearts and memories. This is also executed by the original Godzilla with the Hiroshima attack, and I believe both films, Cloverfield and Godzilla were made 7-9 years after either attack which is interesting to note.
P.S: If you have bad motion sickness I would advise you don't see this or you'll end up wasting 9.50$, a total of about 10-12 people left the theater due to this.