This movie is a janitor's nightmare

Rating: 1/10 (22 January 2008)

I have never walked out of a movie in my entire life. I didn't even walk out of Battlefield Earth... that's not to say I liked it mind you, I just didn't walk. But all of that changed tonight. About an hour ago my wife and I got home from attempting to watch Cloverfield. A failed attempt.
I've never been a fan of hand-held camera work in movies, but this was over the top. 90 minutes of constant, nauseating camera work, urgh! We didn't make it through even 30 of those minutes. After 2 minutes, I was annoyed with the shaky camera, after 5 minutes I was really getting anxious for them to start using a real camera and film the movie properly, after 10 minutes I was starting to wonder if the whole movie was going to be like this and seriously regretting having come to see it, after 15 minutes I had to close my eyes and listen to the movie only, after 20 minutes my wife leaned over and said she was starting to feel sick, so after 25 minutes we both walked out.
The manager was all to happy to give us free passes for a future movie. He asked me if there was a problem with the movie, and the instant I said we were watching Cloverfield he said "Oh, too much shaking right?". Obviously we were not the first to leave. He then went on to say that they had many walk-outs so far because of the shaky camera in the movie and that the janitors had been called to clean up vomit a number of times. Yes, that's right, a movie that actually made people throw up at their very seats not because of the scenery, but because of the filming. It really is that bad. I was walking a little slower than normal, waiting for my stomach to settle after enduring less than half an hour of Cloverfield. As for my wife, the instant we reached home she went straight to the toilet expecting to hurl. She managed to keep it in, but went to bed immediately after to try and sleep off the nausea. The forums here at IMDb are loaded with people who have had similar experiences.
I now rate this movie 1/10. And I really hate to do that. I was excited about it, I really wanted to see this movie and I wanted to like it. Maybe I shouldn't have deliberately avoided reading up on Cloverfield, I might have known that it was going to be filmed like that. But you see I like surprises... most of the time anyway. It seems like a movie that I would've really enjoyed, but unfortunately it turned out to be unwatchable. I would watch any other movie before this one, no matter how bad it was. It just doesn't matter how good a movie is when watching it makes people feel like puking. If I was the only person who felt that way, then I wouldn't blame the movie, but I'm not. Not by a long shot.
It's hard for me to recommend this movie to anyone, even those who are not susceptible to motion sickness have had major problems with Cloverfield. My suggestion is this. Take a digital camera and switch it to movie mode. Then turn it on and play catch with it for an hour or two while it films. Connect it to your television and watch it while sitting 3 feet from the screen. If that doesn't bother you, then go ahead and buy tickets for Cloverfield, it was filmed in pretty much the same way.