Cloverfield was a monster hit!

Rating: 7/10 (6 May 2014)

What I love about Cloverfield is how much mystery was leading up to the film premiere and how much the movie after years later; can leaves you with further questions. It's a thinking man's film as you're left asking yourself, what was that movie really about? Directed by Matt Reeves, Cloverfield is a mystery science fiction monster movie. The film is well-known for barely explaining anything. Coming from J.J Abrams, the producer from TV's Show 'Lost', it shouldn't be no surprise that the film will leave you with questions after watching it. Before settling on an official title, the film was marketed as 1-18-08. A lot of people didn't know what the untitled trailer for Cloverfield was about. Some thought it was a live-action adaptation of Voltron, others thought it was work from author H. P. Lovecraft 'The Call of Cthulhu' or spin-off of the TV show Lost. Due to the trailer, not having a title, so people started to use the name 'The Parasite', 'Slusho" "Greyshot" "Monstrous" and 'Colossus' to describe it. In the end, Cloverfield was chosen as the title. Cloverfield is a weird title that makes you wonder. What does it mean? It seem to be taken off from a street from California. Well, you don't find out in the movie what it means. The film presented itself as found footage from a personal video camera recovered by the United States Department of Defense. A disclaimer text states that the footage is of a case designated "Cloverfield" and was found in the area "formerly known as Central Park". The video consists video of the events of Friday, May 22, 2009 follows six young New Yorkers attending a going-away party on the night that a gigantic monster attacks the city. Occasionally, older segments are shown from a previous video that was mostly taped over showing a trip to Coney Island. What made this found footage movie different from the others, is how big budget, it was. Instead of showing us, nothing like most found footage does, we see a great deal of the monster attacks. Lots of great special effects and CGI that was scary at some points. Lots of scenery gorn. The violence was a bit graphic at times. Look for the store scene for details about that. It was great, but the shaky camera can makes some audience hurl. The film had this cinéma vérité style to look like it was taped with one hand-held camera. You can also see bits of 9/11 allusions based on the destruction in New York City, that makes the film even more disturbing to some viewers. The movie makes homage to other monsters film such as 1954 Godzilla, 1933 King Kong, 1953, the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and others. There is even homage to action movies like 1981's 'Escape from New York' such in the case of the rip Statue of Liberty head being tossed into the streets. The movie also put in Easter Eggs like the drink Slusho and the Japanese drilling company named Tagruato that served as part of the viral marketing campaign for this movie. You can see, both as Easter Eggs in many of JJ Abrams movies since then. So look forward to that. If you look closing in the Coney Island scenes, you can see a certain item hitting the ocean as foreshadowing of the monster's attack. Having the Coney Island scenes in the film, show that a lot of heart went into this film. It really give the movie so emotional value. After all, the acting is alright, but not memorable. Most of the character act like really dumb people and some can be a bit annoying at times. Without giving too much away of the downer ending, thank goodness for the Coney Island scenes to lower the blow. The DVD includes two alternative endings, which vary only slightly. The movie might hold a possible sequel, as there's a moment on the Brooklyn Bridge, with a background character was filming, the characters of the film. It show a different point of view. Overall: The entire film is one long love letter to Kaiju films but lacked substance, development, and emotional value with its damsel in distress story. The action scenes speak more than the human characters. The camera work can physically as well as mentally nauseated. In the end, it's a good B-movie story with a big blockbuster budget. Watch 2014's Godzilla, first. It works better.