Cloverfield

Have a sick bag ready…

The idea is unique in it’s own little way, lets have a giant monster attack New York, but film it from the perspective of civilians via home video. Very interesting concept, that works on quite a few levels, but also has one obvious drawer back.

Firstly as the film was written as a movie (i.e. not a documentary as such), it has a 3 act set-up like most motion pictures and builds to a climax and conclusion. Also you only see glimpses of the monster to begin with until the full-blown money-shot at the end. So in that regard it works, it pulls you in and keeps you entertained, not showing all it’s cards until the end.

Atmospherically the film is brilliant, you really feel as if you’re roaming the streets of New York, and as buildings smash and the monster crashes around the fear of constant dread holds the film up. The special effects are top notch, the monster looks real, when buildings fall they really fall, cars fly and bridges tumble, it could all have been shot for real.

Acting is mediocre and the scripts does what it needs to do to get people from point A to B.

But then the problem, the whole video camera angle, good concept, but in practice, try watching the action sequences with out feeling a little bit queasy. It’s hard, I began feeling a bit bad at points and needed to close my eyes to regain my bearings. Usually this the action sequences, as when the monster turns up, people start running like hell, and the camera is pretty much thrown every which way and direction. Which means some of action sequence for me were a bit ruined as I couldn’t fully enjoy them, and I was actually begging for everything to slow down again.

The film was fun and entertaining, though I couldn’t really enjoy it as much as I would have liked due to the aforementioned camera issue.

7.5/10