Movie Review: Cloverfield

Director Matt Reeves calls Cloverfield a “realistic portrayal of an absolutely outlandish idea” which sums up the movie pretty well. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie that’s completely done in a ‘Blair Witch’ kind of filmography and even longer since I’ve seen extreme viral marketing and hype that is also similar to The Blair Witch Project. Either I don’t watch enough movies and Blair Witch is the only thing I can compare this too, or there really isn’t a movie like this too often making it very special, either way, it does live up to the hype.

This is going to be a somewhat short review as I don’t want to give the whole movie away although there isn’t a lot to give away because most everything is left unexplained. If you couldn’t tell by now it’s a monster movie but it isn’t quite another Godzilla. When I mentioned “Blair Witch Filmography” I meant that the entire movie looks like it was shot on a camcorder which it essentially was, they used Sony F23 high-definition camcorders to shoot most of the film. The style works well, it’s clear that the creators wanted to make it feel like this was a ‘found’ unedited tape of what happened from one person’s perspective and you really do get to experience everything as if you’re right there with them fighting for survival.

The entire movie is based around following five young New Yorkers who throw their friend a going-away party the night a giant creature attacks Manhattan which is precisely where they reside, meaning right away you’re caught in the middle of everything. Cloverfield is far from boring, in fact there are parts that move almost too quick and it’s hard to gather what’s going on. I think that this was done on purpose where they have little details buried in complete chaos, you’d almost have to see the movie more than once to catch everything.

They story behind Cloverfield is very simple, there isn’t one. The movie wastes no time at all explaining what and why everything is happening, it just is. Next thing you know there are soldiers, tanks, air strikes, lower Manhattan is converted into an instant battlefield.

That’s it, I’m going to leave it at that. My only complaint is that the movie seems really short and some people that I spoke with didn’t like the ending. It was definitely unexpected but personally… I thought it was perfect.

Side Note - The extreme secrecy of the plot is almost more interesting than the movie itself. The entire casting process for Cloverfield was carried out with such tight measures to prevent plot leaking that no scripts were sent out to the candidates. Instead of auditioning the actors with scenes from the film, scripts from J. J. Abrams’s previous productions were used, such as television series Alias and Lost. Some scenes were also written specifically for the audition process with no intentions for use in the actual film. If you want to learn more about the filming of Cloverfield or have an urge to completely ruin the plot for yourself take a look at the Wikipedia Article, it’s pretty interesting.

Cloverfield is an intense ride worth seeing again and again, if you get a chance to see it in the theaters I highly recommend it. It’s definitely my top movie for 2008 so far and I have a feeling it will be high on my list for a while.