Monster movie with all of the destruction and a fresh perspective

Rating: 9/10 (27 May 2014)

I finally watched Cloverfield, which I've been interested in ever since the mysterious trailers came out and impressed my monster-movie-loving-middle-school self years ago...and I wasn't let down. This could have easily turned out to be a lame gimmick flick (and many people will see it as that) with all of the shaky cam and found footage aspects, but I never found those to be a hindrance to my enjoyment of the movie and I even thought that it enhanced the atmosphere and mood of the disaster. After seeing the newest Godzilla movie recently, Cloverfield came along and gave me everything that I thought was wrong about Godzilla 2014. It shows a human perspective and a city dealing with chaos that came out of nowhere. Shocking, chilling, impressive...all shown in a way that reflects a lot of the fears from 9/11 (a lot of the footage reminds me of some scenes from 102 Minutes That Changed America. Instead of focusing on the monster (which I thought could have looked cooler) it focuses on the human reactions in dealing with the problem. BUT, it does have its fair share of monster movie glory. The destruction looks great. Buildings collapsing, explosions, smaller faster monsters, a good amount of gore, screaming citizens, military action...it's all there, just with a unique twist in the form of hand-held camera-work. It's definitely not a great quality movie when considering all of the standards in assessing film, there are flaws. The actors aren't great, the writing is below average, the constant commentary gets a little old. But I'm willing to overlook all of these just because it's a monster movie that I think really captured the initial and following moments of terror in discovering a huge alien creature destroying all of Manhattan. There is also a romantic sideplot added in, which I wasn't too excited about, although I will admit it adds a whole element that adds a personal touch. Annnd although it could have been better, I have no complaints about the ending.
Rating: 9/10 Watch again?: With pleasure