CLOVERFIELD MOVIE REVIEW
A bunch of 20somethings in New York throw a going away party for Rob ( Michaael Stahl-David ). During the party all hell breaks loose in the city from a loud bang, the head of the Statue of Liberity flying down the road to several other events that may just bring the city to its knees.
The movie is told through a video camera that was found in Cloverfield aka New York’s Central Park. The opening scene in the movies give you the images from the camera that was ‘found’ near the incident area of Cloverfield , as if we were watching what the government found first time. Be warned since this movie was filmed with handheld camera, just like your home movie, the shaking of the camera, the closeup to wide angle changes will give you a bad case of veritgo or even flu like symptoms. I suggest sitting at least 10 rows back, if not up higher in a theater that offers stadium seating.
Our heroes of this movie, is mankind. We do not know where this creature came from, but we know through the eyes of the camera, its just scary as hell to be in New York. This creature eats building, people, tanks and only gets more aggressive when the military comes after it. With the wild camera movement, you see what looks like smaller versions of the creature that are akin to Starship Troopers bugs, or spideras from 8 Legged Freaks. Either way, they will bit you and you will die with massive hemorrhages , well who wouldn’t after getting bit by a critter 80% you body size.
The hype this movie got was so similar to 1989’s Batman, and I give the PR company and the production company and A+ on their marketing of this film. For months we asked ourself what the heck is Cloverfield. No after the movie I’m still asking myself that!
I would epected this movie to fair well aside from the sea-sickness you might get. When this movie hits the home market on DVD, HdDVD/Blueray it should fair well , since the handheld camera should translate well to the home market.
Overall I give this movie 2.5 stars. Wish we had move time to address some of the relationship issues in this film, or to see another retrospective of this film e.g. photo’s or footage from other witnesses.
Cloverfield is Rated pg-13. For scenes of mayhem, language, violence, terror, disturbing images.
Maximilian Werner a writing professor from the Univeristy of Utah and Jeff from iscifi.tv spoke about the work on Black River Dreams, living in Utah’s unique writing style.