Cloverfield

If you were one of the many people that saw Transformers this past summer you probably came out of the theater raving, or hating, about the giant robot spectacular. Odds are you probably also came out talking about a mysterious teaser trailer that played in front of the summer blockbuster. Sporting no title and only displaying the date 1-18-08, the movie quickly became the topic of much discussion across the internet. Well, 1-18-08 is finally here – Cloverfield has arrived! Does it live up to the hype? Is it the next great monster movie? Well simply put – yes. Cloverfield is like nothing you’ve ever seen before and is destined to be the topic of discussion for years to come. It’s just that good.

If you’ve been keeping up with the hype then you know what the basic gist is. For the uninitiated, Cloverfield is essentially what happens when you take The Blair Witch Project and mix it with Godzilla. It follows Rob (Michael Stahl-David) and his friends trying to survive a night of horror when a giant monster starts reeking havoc on New York City. The entire movie is seen through one digital camera, being filmed by Rob’s friend Hud (T.J. Miller). Whose job was once to document Rob’s going away party, but has now turned into something much more. After all hell breaks loose, Rob is extremely eager to go find Beth (Odette Yustman), who is trapped downtown. The movie becomes a simple case of getting from point A to point B. The core story is nothing new, in fact, it’s pretty clichéd, but thanks to the intense style that the movie offers, the story and the characters become a lot more interesting.

Despite its huge marketing campaign and promises that Cloverfield was the next great monster movie I still didn’t quite know what to expect. Let’s face it, the style of the movie is something that, if handled poorly, could make for a huge disaster. Thankfully, within the first five minutes, I was hooked - Cloverfield is the furthest thing from a disaster. It was really easy to become hooked on Cloverfield because of the pure simplicity behind it. Unlike other monster flicks, that focus on a huge scope to tell a story, Cloverfield is essentially about four people trying to survive – and it works.

The movie is the next evolutionary step in this POV style of filmmaking, like The Blair With Project before it, the real charm behind Cloverfield is how wrapped up in the story you become. Traditional monster movies are big and loud, and how involved do you usually become with the characters of big-budget monster flicks?

As for the monster. It provides the thrills you would want; just don’t expect it to be popping up every five minutes. That might be a problem for some people, seeing as how the monster has been shrouded in mystery for the last 6 months, but not having the monster on screen that much is why Cloverfield is such a great monster movie. The idea of having a small group of people trying to deal with this disaster is much more intense and suspenseful than a giant monster crushing buildings would ever be – we’ve seen that stuff before. The monster is merely a prop, the cause of all the chaos, but not the focal point of the movie.

Overall, Cloverfield isn’t going to be for everyone. It’s fast paced shaky camera style is sure to alienate people, but the people that are able to enjoy that style of filmmaking are going to be in for a treat.