Dross... complete dross.

Rating: 2/10 (17 July 2009)

Where to start? Although Cloverfield has a high rating here on IMDb, I honestly believe it to be one of the worst movies I have recently viewed. No. Check that. It's one of the worst movies I have EVER viewed.
I really cannot for the life of me understand how anyone can rate this movie highly - it has NO redeeming qualities. To begin with, the first 20 or so minutes are just pure tedium. My guess is that they were put there to "flesh out" the characters, but apart from being mind-numbingly boring, all they succeed in doing is to irritate. By the time the monster appeared, I really couldn't have cared less about the people in this movie. Sure, there are always those people who go down into the cellar when you just know there's a monster there. There has to be - without the characters doing dumb things there would be no movie. But the characters in this movie? I would have shoved them down the cellar steps myself. They're so dumb, so annoying, so damn pointless. In fact, if I were a monster in Manhattan, I would have specifically targeted these guys and squashed them or eaten them myself. Just to save the rest of the human race from having to share oxygen with them.
And then the guts of the movie - the "monster section". There was nothing. No story to speak of, no monster to speak of (we see very little of it), no great finale, no real gore, no logic, nothing but a bunch of people running around, screaming on a jerky video camera. Sure, leave me something for my imagination but at the same time, at least give me SOMETHING to work with. Cloverfield is just empty. I feel like I got the husk of a movie, something with no substance - a chocolate wrapper without ever tasting the chocolate.
There are those who will say that this movie has "depth". There are those who will say it is "realistic". There are those who will say that it stands out as "unique". Yeah? On which planet? Here on Planet Earth, all I saw was an incredibly dull and poorly made rehash of a Godzilla movie. I am utterly amazed that this dross pulls in more than a 7 rating. Not only that, but reading through some of the positive reviews here, I can't help wondering whether I actually went and viewed the same movie. Perhaps I just dreamt that I saw an incredibly bad movie called "Cloverfield"? Perhaps I haven't seen the real "Cloverfield" that others seem to be raving about. That's really the only explanation I can come up with when looking at the discrepancies between my opinion of this trash and some of the views of the people who rave that it's a decent movie. Or maybe a lot of people see an America scarred by 911 and believe that a disaster movie where New York gets trashed is some sort of Holy Grail that can only be venerated? I honestly can't see any other reason for giving Cloverfield a second glance.
Believe me: don't be fooled. Cloverfield is NOT a good movie. It's terrible. I could go on and on about what makes it bad, but analysing every scene would take ages and this movie really doesn't deserve any more of my time than I've already given it.