Truly the best Camcorder film

Rating: 10/10 (1 March 2010)

Now I love the "found footage" style of filmmaking. Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch, Quarantine, all great films. But Cloverfield is not only my favorite of this genra, but it one of my favorite movies of all time, number 4 to be exact. How do I begin to describe why this movie kicks so much ass...
First the characters: Every single one of these characters are likable. Even the ones that are supposed to be annoying like Hud, despite the fact that he annoys the rest of the characters by never stop filming, he's actually my favorite character because he just so funny. I actually felt sorry for some of these characters when they died. I actually named my cat Marlena, you probably won't get it, so if you want to know why exactly why I named it after her, ask me in the comments. I guess if you want to nitpick, the characters are kind of cliché, Beth is the damsel in distress, Marlena is the weird emo like chick, Hud is the frat boy who doesn't know when to shut up, but this never bothered me.
The acting is top notch, these actors had not been in a lot of movies before this film started, but were absolutely great. Never did I think I was watching actors, I was watching real people, in a real situation. And the three actresses who play Marlena, Lily and Beth...smoking hot.
The special effects are amazing, I mean it, there is not one part of this movie that I didn't believe was there. That doesn't happen, no matter how good a movie's CGI is, there is always at least one scene that I can tell is CG. That never happened here, maybe it was because it was dark, maybe it was the movement of the camera, but every special effects shot was perfect, and this movie did not have a big budget.
The "found footage" element is used very well here, I was never feeling motion sick. This movie has fun with the gimmick, as much as I love movies like Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch, and Quarantine, (hell I thought Apollo 18 was OK), those movies seem to take themselves to seriously with the gimmick, we know it ain't real, but they try so hard to convince us that they are. Cloverfield knows it's a movie and takes advantage of it.
Speaking of fun, not only is this movie really, really funny at times, but the main reason I love this movie is because it is so much fun. It entertains me every time I watch it, and by the end I want to watch it again.
I didn't get into the viral hype, and thus didn't see the movie until it came out on DVD. I really wish I had gone to see this movie in theaters. That's why I hope they make a sequel, I really, really want to see more of what happened that night. Please J.J. Abrams, I couldn't care less about Star Trek 2, make a sequel to this.
And if you have the DVD or blu ray, there are some really cool Easter eggs on them.