Exploits Human Emotion to Create an Amazing Movie

Rating: 10/10 (18 January 2008)

Looking back at the history of monster movies, we find that he monster is often shown blatantly and often. In addition, any destruction of famous landmarks and military attacks are usually indulged to an almost ridiculous extent with hollow, undeveloped, throwaway characters and little story driven by them. So here comes the half movie, half experiment known as Cloverfield, which is shot from a hand-held camera for a more realistic effect and revolves around the perspective of a small group of friends. And it is ingenious. Now, I've constantly been lurking on websites that explain the back-story of the monster. Unfortunately for those who want all of the details, you may be disappointed to find that no true back-story is in the movie. This however, makes the creature itself all the more mysterious, and thus utilises this mystery to make the movie all the more effective. As in almost any monster movie, the creature is shown in detail (though not often). I was surprised to find that I got a more than decent look at it early on in the attack. Now here's where I honestly have to greatly commend the makers of this film. The monster and its parasites are really not extraordinarily "amazing" in appearance. Though they are cool, they're modest, and there's just not much that makes them too incredible. The reason that I love this so much is because, in a movie aimed at giving us the most realistic monster movie of all time (an oxymoron, I know), there is not going to be some hardcore creature with flame-breath and other useless features. Sorry Godzilla fans. As far as the story itself goes, it's extremely human-driven and does a great job at enthralling the viewer. For those of you who want action, allow me to say this has to be one of the fastest paced, intense monster films I have seen. There's plenty of military action here, and though it is often on a small scale, the pure intensity of it gives a rich, epic feeling. The destruction of landmarks is not nearly as tasteless and focused on as in past films as well. Humor is also plentiful and there are no bad jokes. In closing, there are a lot of plot holes, but because this is the perspective of the "average Joe" in a monster attack, I absolutely welcome them. You may not consider this to be the best monster film of all time, but at least consider it as a much-needed innovation to a genre that was, in my opinion, hanging by a thread in the mainstream movie market.