Much Better Than Expected!

Rating: 7/10 (12 June 2008)

When "Cloverfield" was released earlier this year, much whoop-de-doo was made about the fact that in the film, the viewers are supposedly watching footage of a monster attack on New York City, shot with a hand-held video camera by one of the characters. This obviously brought about comparisons like "It's Godzilla meets Blair Witch!" Unfortunately, I absolutely HATED "Blair Witch" so that was not a major selling point for me. I do love me a good giant monster story though, so when the film became available thru my cable system's On Demand selection I decided to take the plunge and see what all the fuss was about, and ended up being pleasantly surprised. You know how in EVERY Godzilla-style "giant monster" film, there's always at least one scene of hundreds of citizens running panic stricken through the streets, pointing up at the creature and screaming? "Cloverfield" is basically a "Godzilla" story told from the viewpoint of a few of those people. As the film opens we find ourselves in the apartment of Rob Hawkins, a twentysomething who's about to depart to take a new job in Japan. His friends have gathered for a surprise farewell party and one of those friends, "Hud," is given a video camera and asked to walk around gathering "testimonials" and farewell messages to Rob from everyone in the room. Even though he doesn't really want to, Hud begrudgingly begins his recording, and then a huge explosion suddenly rocks the building. From there it's "on," as the characters rush outside just as New York City descends into chaos. Some sort of huge creature is rampaging through Manhattan and we follow Hud, Rob, and several of their friends as they try to make it out of the city for the rest of the film. Would it violate spoiler rules to say that some characters make it, most don't, and it's a white knuckle ride all the way? Though I expected the shaky, "hand held" camera work to be distracting, I honestly didn't even notice it anymore after the you-know-what hit the fan. There have been complaints on this very board about the relatively short run time (just under 90 minutes) of "Cloverfield" and that most viewers will still have un-answered questions at the end of the movie, (just where DID this critter come from anyway? Outer space? The Ocean? What happened to Rob and his girl after the camera went off?)but none of this mattered to me. I found it fast moving, occasionally heart breaking, and exciting, and it's something I would probably watch again.