This is the way monster movies should be done...

Rating: 8/10 (19 January 2008)

Just saw the movie and still have the mild rush from it going on 30 minutes later. This is the way monster movies need to be done. We are talking Alien-style. You don't need to see the monster because your own fear and imagination can come up with something more terrifying than anyone in Hollywood ever could. The director knows this, the writer knows this. And that is why the hand camera first person view works. It really lets you control the movie and put it in your hands.
Look back to the 50's and 60's when anything that could grow to 50 feet would attack. Most of those monsters came from nuclear fall outs, accidents, testing or war. And so Hollywood played out those fears with the giant monsters attacking. Because that is what nuclear energy was. This giant unstoppable force, that was indiscriminate in its destruction.
It would be so hard to sell a giant monster movie to today's audiences. King Kong worked for the nostalgia factor. Godzilla was horrible. We have lived under nuclear power for far too long and no longer fear it. With the Cold War over the threat of nuclear wars has faded (and I mainly mean MAD type nuclear attacks, nuclear terrorism will be covered in a minute).
So what scares an audience when the raw unbridled power of nuclear destruction doesn't scare us? What scares an audience that is tuned in to everything, has constant media updates whether news, pop culture or even the smallest bits of trivia piped into our phones, computers and televisions. It is the idea of being disconnected, of not knowing what is going on.
That is what Cloverfield plays off of, the unknown. America's greatest fear right now is the uncertainty of the future. We did not see the attacks on the World trade Centers and the pentagon coming. We have know idea who controls all of the nuclear weapons in the old Soviet states. we have know idea how much biological weapons fell into the hands of Syria or Iran. Our fear is not in what we can see coming, it is in what we can't see. By not giving you explanations or clear pictures, the monster becomes more than just a monster rampaging a city. The monster embodies that fear of the unknown.
Once the fear is established, the movie's perspective forces the audience to evaluate what they would when the unknown crashes down right in front of them. Do you run from it? Do you find your lost love? Who do you want to be when it hits? And the best part is you are contemplating this while being taken on a well paced roller coaster ride, with highs and lows positioned at the exact right spots. It was expertly edited and shot so it let audiences relax before throwing them back into situations where most people would decide not to carry on.
There is a part of me that says the people that are looking for a concise explanation of every aspect has let Hollywood or TV totally destroy their imagination to the point that they can't fill the blanks on their own. Put, the video game controller down for a minute and think people. Sometimes the best stores we can get from the movies are the ones we fill in ourselves.
For those out there that want to see a good monster movie, in a time when it is harder and harder to scare audiences with the over abundance of torture-porn flicks or badly done big budget CGI-fests, Cloverfield is for you. You just need to go in with the right mindset. Let yourself become one of those people on the streets and in the buildings as unknown fear falls around you, then you will know what the movie is about and you will enjoy the ride.
For those that need their hand held through a movie because you are use to Michal Bay telling you why the big bad aliens are attacking, I am sure Matthew Broderick would be really happy if you picked up a few more copies of Godzilla.