Cloverfield

JJ Abrams, producer of two of T.V.'s biggest hits, Lost and Alias, jumps onto the big screen with a horror/sci-fi thriller, that was marketed to be 2008's first big hit. Well JJ let's be grateful that you are really good at putting the pieces together to make really good TV, because if Cloverfield is any indication of what is to come from you in the movie industry - I'll pass.



Cloverfield was an attempt to combine the hand-held camera recording style introduced in Blair Witch Project and digital recording to make the film feel more intense and authentic. From strickly a film making point of view the movie did have some success in that regard. There were at least three scenes in the movie that really worked because of the hand held affect; the train tunnel scene and the two apartment scenes (the first one at party and the second to find his girl friend). However outside of those two scenes I felt like it was limiting and prevented the audience from getting a full picture of what was happening. I am sure that was the intent and thereby add to the authencity, but I found it annoying.



Regarding the story, it was shallow and full of holes. Perhaps we have reached a place in our civilization where so many movies have been made about government conspiracies and cover ups and experiments gone wrong, etc. but I would appreciate at least some lips service being paid to try explain why a random huge monster is ravaging Manhattan. We got no explanation of where the monster came from nor did we get any clue as to who knew what about it. Again I understand that the story being told was about this group of friends and how they are simply trying to survive this encounter. So we only know what they know, which would go to my early point that is shallow story telling.



In the end the movie had a couple of moments here and there, but for the most part did not deliver and ultimately was a dissapointment.



GRADE - D