5punk

Not sure if anyone has done one for this movie yet so...

It all started with a short trailer before the new Transformers move (win!) A young man at a party to celebrate him leaving somewhere, filmed on a handheld camera, suddenly the lights go out, there are bangs and crashes and people run outside to see what is happening. Just in time to hear a loud monsterlike moan a large explosion high up on a building and the head from the statue of liberty bounces down the street. Fade to black and the release date.

February saw the release of the movie Cloverfield. JJ Abrams was taking his Lostness into monster movies.
And, really, he didn't do that bad a job.
All the camera work as done on a hand held camera but don't let this put you off, it is no where near as sickness inducing as blair witch, and whilst the characters do not incur the kind of distate you felt toward the unfortunates in Blair Witch you, by no means, give a shit about them.
Unfortunately the film is still shrouded in mystery - nothing is explained. Views of the monster are few and not for very long, why the monster is there, where it came from, why it is attacking New York, what people are imploding... none of these are explained to the viewer and a lot of speculation has been taking place trying to discover said info. But, somehow Abrams has managed to create a brilliant film that will keep you on the edge of your seat (and sometimes out of it) without having to worry about whys and wherefores and without the audience being emotionally attached to the characters.
A good film whose only let down for me was the brief glimpses of the monster and the sometimes aggravating direction the camera was being aimed in, an example of which is when you can see the monster far left of the camera but the camera gets pointed the opposite direction (common sense as the character is running away, but never the less bloody annoying)

I would give it 4 pie out of 5

So, like Godzilla but with no backstory, justification or proper camera work?

I quite enjoyed this film. It did suffer a bit from the characters taking stupid risks, reminiscent of horror film characters going off on their own or going swimming at night, and other unlikely things. But in the context of a giant monster attacking a city suspension of disbelief is required.

The characters were annoying. At one point someone was calling out the lead character's name constantly; "Rob! Rob! Rob! Rob! Rob! Rob! Rob! Rob! Rob! Rob! ..." and I was thinking "STFU! STFU! STFU! STFU! STFU! STFU!".

If I was going to watch this again I would do a few things different.

1. I'd skip the boring start.
2. I'd bring a bucket and some motion sickness pills.
3. I'd put it off and watch Godzilla instead, much much better film.

I went hoping for some monster sized win and got some fail instead. Boring start, slow middle with not enough monster, stupid wobbly camera and some proper tard characters. It's only semi redeeming feature is that the cameraman is a proper sarcastic and very funny bloke at times.

Chickenz wrote:3. I'd put it off and watch Godzilla instead, much much better film.

This would imply that Godzilla is a good film.

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amblin wrote:Technically no, merely that it's better than Cloverfield. Chickenz didn't say Cloverfield was good.

Yes but he did say "much much better", which I believe is enough "much"s to imply it was good.

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I enjoyed it. I went in being a little sceptical after Blair Witch, but I was gobsmacked several times and was gripped almost throughout. As Chicken said, it seems to take ages to get going, but once it does it's edge of the seat stuff. I noticed that not only was there the thumping of the monster and the military pounding it all through the film, but that the action had a sort of footstep rythm to match it. The film slows right down then punches you with a big surprise, then the characters run away and start to catch their breath, and it all slowly calms down, then boom another footfall action piece hits you.

Comparing it to Godzilla isn't quite right, in my opinion. They both contained a big stompy monster attacking a city, but there the similarities end for me. Cloverfields is about the small group of characters trying to get through their own story with the monster as a backdrop, while Godzilla was the story of the monster itself. Both are appealing (to me), but in different ways.

Most disappointing for me was not knowing more of the story, but surely wanting more of it can only be a good thing?

In a typical JJ "lets milk this fucker" Abrams kind of way there's talk of a sequel. There's certainly scope for it.

Spoilers

Something that I wasn't clear on after watch was what were those smaller creatures, they're parasites apparently. For me it was a toss up between that and it's young.

Also, monster not dead? - http://tinyurl.com/28w2ep
And a monster figurine for sale - http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/ProductsBy ... 030&BR=863

Anery wrote:I would give it 4 pie out of 5

May I have the last one, I'm quite hungry.

I finally got around to watching this, rather enjoyed it.

worth a

I have to point out that watching a floorware version will cause you to miss out on the grandeur of the film. The large scale and booming sound effects are perfect for the cinema, and I'm not sure this will translate as well to the small screen.

okay, worth a 1080p


I agree that it'd benefit from bigger screen etc, and for that reason I'd suggest buying it on DVD or shinier format. But it's still a decent movie in small-o-vision.

Watched this the other night, totally missed this thread about it before watching it tho.

Film was good. The romance bit was done fine, which is saying a lot coming from me. I was frustrated with the camera work and I would be interested to see a version of the same done like a normal movie instead, with more pwning the monster footage.

I also enjoyed it. People who complain about the characters don't know what New York 20-something douchebags are like. They were all totally believable.

I especially liked the part where they're walking down some street when the monster appears in front of them and while they stare at it all of the sudden shitload of army grunts start unloading on it and they all go ohshit and dive for cover. In my opinion, it's the best monster flick in quite a while.

deject wrote:In my opinion, it's the best monster flick in quite a while.

I liked it muchly. I like the dodgy handheld camerawork, it gave it a bit more of an original, grittier feel. I like the fact that there is no backstory to the monster; I hate the way everything nowadays is usually spoon fed to you like they expect all their audience to be imaginationless morons. Personally, I think it translates to the smaller screen quite well. Ok, you don't get the "OMFG HUEG!" moments, but on the other hand you are less likely to puke in your popcorn. I thought the characters were reasonably realistic (for this kind of film) and liked the fact that the story was about them running away from the monster, rather than the more formulaic story of Godzilla.

Speaking of which, I fucking despise Godzilla. Its in my top five "big pile of generic, badly written crap" films. Its story is terrible: its all been done before, there is not *one* original thing that I remember from that film. The effects were nothing special, the acting was half-arsed, and its internal consistency was fucking awful. Godzillas size goes up and down like a bloody yo-yo. I would rather sit in a dark room listening to white noise for an hour than sit through that again.

Maybe I'm an imaginationless moron, but it always super-pissed me off in the 70/80s when you'd only get glimpses of what might be a monster, largely due to budgetary constrants, or the fact that monsters always looked a bit crap before the digital age.

I realise with this release they've done it in an attempt to highten the suspense, but I'd still feel a little cheated and reminded of those earlier low-budget flicks.

I didn't actually like Godzilla, other than from the perspective of saying "whee, it's Godzilla, like in the cartoons when I was a kid, but where's Godzuki? lol".

My problem with Godzilla (the 1998 one) was the complete lack of effort to get anything right as far as the army shit was concerned. they didn't even bother. that coupled with how completely fucking incompetent they made the military out to be just kinda made me angry.

deject wrote: that coupled with how completely fucking incompetent they made the military out to be

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