The best behemoth movie I've ever seen. Period.

Rating: 8/10 (15 February 2008)

After first having seen the now famous teaser trailer a couple of months ago, I thought that this movie - then tentatively referred to as "Untitled J.J. Abrams Project" - was going to be a fluke. A minor hit fueled by a clever marketing strategy. The teaser got me curious, but I thought the CGI-shot of the statue head landing in the New York streets looked cheap and fake. Unexpectedly, I was proved wrong. A lot of very positive reviews preceded the Austrian theatrical release of "Cloverfield" and having finally seen the movie now I have to say that all the praise is more than deserved. And the CGI has thankfully been worked on.
What makes "Cloverfield" work better than any other behemoth movie is quite simply the concept of having the whole thing being shot by one of the characters. Sure, that idea isn't new at all. "The Blair Witch Project" had done it years before "Cloverfield". Even George A. Romero has made his latest "Living Dead" flick with that technique. Still, the concept works best here. Somehow the contrast between this giant monster wrecking a whole city and this one guy with a small camera creates amazing tension. Showing the main characters' adventurous journey through the lens of a shaky, hand-held camera puts the audience right in the middle of the events. We never get an overview over the whole situation - neither visually nor plot-wise. Rockets, wreckage and monsters fly around our heads left and right and make us feel as if we were in the middle of a war. Don't see this without a Dolby Surround system! The sound design is brilliant. From the roars of the behemoth to the creepy, blood-thirsty gargling of its crab babies it makes your skin crawl. What adds to the realism of the movie is that there's no music, which also makes the jumps completely unpredictable.
"Cloverfield" plays out almost like a Haunted House or a roller-coaster ride. We never know what waits around the corner for us. We only get very brief glimpses of the giant monster and its even more horrific little spider babies and every time we see something it scares the crap out of us. There's one scene that I liked in particular: the characters run through the streets and into an underground station. Shortly before they walk down the stairs the "cameraman" looks up and there's the monster letting out a terrifying roar. That moment is ten times more effective than any high gloss production like Roland Emmerich's "Godzilla" could ever have hoped to be.
Of course, another reason why the perspective of the guys in the streets running through the ruins of New York is so genuinely horrific these days, is because we've seen scenes like that on TV in real life-news. It's the memories of 9/11 that "Cloverfield" is toying with. Just like every good horror movie this one is incorporating current imagery of terror and fear.
The hand-held camera is not only used for action purposes, though. It also backs up the story brilliantly with occasional flashbacks that appear as the remains of previously filmed material on the video cassette in the camera. That is a very original stylistic touch and one of the great things about "Cloverfield": the movie is bursting with fresh ideas. This can also be said about the various settings, most of all a nerve grinding walk through the staircase of a half-collapsed skyscraper and a helicopter ride that you're never going to forget.
Even less spectacular scenes like the exposition at the beginning, which has been dismissed by some reviewers as being too long, is brilliant and fast paced to an extend where I thought, that I couldn't care less if a monster was coming any time soon or not. The characters alone, played solidly by a largely unknown cast, were interesting and well-crafted enough.
Finally, let's talk about the main attraction, the behemoth and its spawn. The big one itself must be one of the most memorable monsters in movie history, looking like something that jumped out of a Derek Hess-painting. Its spider babies are even creepier, though. Although they don't look that original, you can never go wrong with aggressive arachnids that lurk in the dark (see also "Starship Troopers" or "Gremlins 2"). The CGI is fantastic, and even though it may not age well, in 2008 it looks flawless. There wasn't one special effects-scene in the movie that I didn't buy and that's also due to the fact that the camera is used so thoughtfully.
Which brings us to the direction. Director Matt Reeves does a superb job in that the whole "filmed by an amateur"-feel never seems forced. We're shown exactly what Reeves wants us to see, yet it all feels completely coincidental and natural. I even bought the fact that the guy holding the camera would go on filming throughout the entire trip.
"Cloverfield" sets new standards in its field. It outshines every other behemoth movie that has been released, yet, and raises the bar for the whole subgenre. You can't make them much better than Reeves and Abrams did with "Cloverfield", because this doesn't rely on CGI mostly, but on character development and tension. Similar projects will have a hard time topping this movie in the future.