Review of Cloverfield (2008) by J F — 01 Oct 2012

The film starts by trying to develop the characters through drawn out and boring conversation... Honestly I don't remember any ones names and felt no attachment as they met their demise; needless to say, that portion was not affective...

It was not until the movie got all " Blair Witch Project" meets "War of the Worlds" that the movie became interesting. Although there were some issues, such as-- the camera battery that seemingly last 12 hrs or more judging by the date and time information in the corner of the screen. Honestly, this would not have been an issue if this battery existed in a imagined movie world where batteries didn't die; but the inconsistency is born when one of the character's cell phone battery died-- at this point we realize that electronics do in fact rely on power. But I guess I can let that go seeing as the camera is a driver in the movie.

Next is the lack of development that surrounds the monster. In fact throughout the entire film there is never much development in terms of what the hell it is, where came from or even what happened to it. I mean was it from below or above or was it some government experiment gone rouge? What I will say is that the terror is a lot more affective during the scenes where there are no clear shots of the monster. In later scenes where we get a good look at it; it comes off as a grasshopper/ dinosaur thing-a-ma-bob... In other words it's a little more disappointing than shocking. A good look at the monster explains why no one says anything about where it came from or what it is. I wouldn't be surprised if even the monster was stumped about those questions!

In closing, the film does an pretty good job of achieving it's objective-- which is making us believe that whatever this is, is happening to whatever these peoples' names are in Manhattan, and for whatever reason the film is called Cloverfield. All questions need not be addressed because the director said so!