Directed by:
Matt ReevesScreenplay:
Drew GoddardCinematography:
Michael BonvillainCast:
Michael Stahl-David, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller, Mike Vogel, Odette Annable, Anjul Nigam, Margot Farley, Theo Rossi, Brian Klugman, Kelvin Yu (more)VOD (5)
Plots(1)
Director Matt Reeves and producer J.J. Abrams turn a mysterious monster loose in Manhattan in the disaster flick Cloverfield. The movie begins at a party for Rob (Michael Stahl-David), who has accepted a promotion that will send him to Japan. Hud (T.J. Miller) is entrusted with the responsibility of videotaping the party - and as the trouble grows, he holds on to the camera, recording everything that happens. In fact, the entire movie is seen through the lens of his camera. As terrified people in a post-9/11 New York City take to the streets, Rob decides to head uptown to try to save Beth (Odette Yustman), the woman he loves, though he's afraid to tell her so. Rob is joined by his brother Jason (Mike Vogel), Jason's girlfriend Lily (Jessica Lucas), Lily's friend Marlena (Lizzy Caplan), and Hud, who has a thing for Marlena. Rob is determined not to give up, even after almost being crushed by the Statue of Liberty's head and as the military shows up to force evacuation of the city. (Paramount Pictures)
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Reviews (12)
It is a blast, but sometimes the excessive effort to push for authenticity at all costs can be bothersome. After all, there are simply moments when even the toughest journalist, reporter or cameraman wouldn’t be able hold the camera and would run to save their own life. So besides the fact that director, Matt Reeves, basically shouts to the world “look how realistically I filmed this” thanks to these scenes, the film does not suffer from any significant shortcomings. The characters behave quite believably, the chaos and confusion are excellently portrayed, and the sense of unpredictability is brilliant. Only the clichéd subplots of the story (except for the rampage of the monster and the rescue of the loved one – as later revealed) get a bit boring, but among all the explosions, shooting, and falling buildings, there is not much time for it anyway.
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A demonstration of an ineffective effect. For most of the short runtime of the film, I felt that I was witnessing the realization of a typically sparse screenplay of a disaster film, which was cleverly wrapped in refined technical means and served to the audience raw. Unfortunately, this does not change the fact that under the raw packaging, Cloverfield is baked, in some places even burned. In fact, the technical design must also be seen in the context of the time period - just look at the extent to which the handheld camera dominates, for example, in contemporary American series. From this perspective, producer J. J. Abrams perfectly found the pulse of the time period and presented the audience with a film with a familiar appearance and content that fully suits the current obsession of people with feeling threatened. Unfortunately, Cloverfield is no more than wrapping, and even this wrapping only plays on the first signal. This film is only image and sound. Bad characters, affected actors, no content. Although this is undoubtedly a quality genre film, the way in which the film's carelessly obscured conventionality shines through disappointed me. Despite my modest expectations... [6/10]
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"I'm documenting." I am devastated that Cloverfield is just an average picture. It was a really nice idea (despite being pipped to the post by that Spanish zombie movie - Rec - that I’m intrigued to see). That goes hand in hand with the convincing stylization. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the sound is just perfect. The music composition during the closing credits was just delicious. And lastly the entire movie up to the storming by the army was absolutely gripping. Unfortunately, the creators then ran out of ideas, just recycling those already used, all of a sudden the chosen style no longer has anything to offer and primarily the characters’ reaches the pinnacle of illogicality and starts to be actively annoying. If this were just another classic Godzilla movie, that wouldn’t matter at all, but pseudo-documentaries trying to be “what would happen if" realistic, this is really surprising and ruins the entire concept. And the last five minutes really puts the icing on the cake. Why couldn’t it have finished with that fall? This way, although it has a clean running time of about seventy five minutes, in the end even that is too long. And it’s a huge shame.
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After watching it a second time several years later, I'm raising my rating because I appreciate above all the fantastic demonstration of the implementation possibilities. Goddard politely circles around genre clichés but manages to profile the protagonists, and Reeves takes the whole thing to a new level with a clever POV, showing only as much of the titular monster as the audience needs, though we’re certainly begging for more. Fantastic special effects and a perfect soundtrack move the film into top form. At a time when polished CGI is the standard, the flying head, the iconic bridge, and the leaning building look like a technical treat from a time yet to come. 4 ½.
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Cloverfield is an obvious mix of The Blair Witch Project and Godzilla, taking the best and the worst from both of them. The entire film is shot with a handheld camera, so those who hate shaky images need to consider whether they should invest their time in it at all before watching it. The film's running time is perfectly adequate – an hour and a quarter – and I wasn't actually bored, why the 3* then? To be honest, I was a bit more annoyed with our famous "cameraman" who filmed everything, everyone and everywhere, but then again, there would have been nothing to watch. I didn't like the script either, but the look of the monster and the CGI action scenes were excellent. In short, a film that no doubt deserves a large fanbase, but I didn't find my way to it, which in this case is a shame.
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