A Terrifying Allegory!

Rating: 9/10 (20 November 2012)

OK, I know, people are getting tired of the mockumentry hand shaken, but not stirred films, but I can't resist a giant monster movie, especially one as good as this! A giant monster with deadly offspring attacks New York City. We don't know where it came from, what it is, other than it can topple over 50 story buildings & is multiplying quickly with fast moving/growing offspring whose bites bring on a deadly infection to whomever is bitten. It is impervious to non-nuclear military attacks, & is wreaking havoc on to the city.
Sounds like your typical Japanese giant monster film, right? Yes, if that was what all this film was about, but it isn't. That's where the hand-held POV camera comes in & tells the story of mass hysteria, & the horror of an unknown terror. Of how a group of young New Yorkers try to survive the onslaught of not just the monster, but the military trying to destroy the monster, & a city collapsing around them. It delves into these characters psyches as they confront certain death, time & time again. How they band together for the good of all & the good of one. There is no fairy tale endings here to make the audience feel better. There is no sparing of heart rendering scenes. This is mayhem, wicked, brutal, & heart breaking. This is what it would be like if this scenario was to ever happen. Real people with deep emotions & attachments losing their loved ones & their lives.
"Cloverfield" is a clever heart pulsing thrill ride. It smartly never lets you get to many good glimpses of the monster. Most of the time a shot of the head, the body, the extremities, which make the beast all the more threatening.
"Cloverfield" knows how to get your attention! A particularly great scene is one of the head of the Statue of Liberty flying of it's shoulders & landing blocks into the city, rolling to a stop in the middle of a street. A great parable to 9/11. A great parable of pure unadulterated horror of something so incomprehensible happening, that it overwhelms the logical mind. A true demonstration of just how naked & vulnerable we truly are as a species, whether it be against our own kind, or nature.
Yes, "Cloverfield" is an allegory to a path that many fear the most & expect the least. A path that has been traveled down time & time again in the real world, but we never would think it would happen to us, until it does.