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Cloverfield
- Thread starter eyez0nme
- Start date
lionsroar13
New Member
I think I'll skip it, I'd get too dizzy trying to watch,
Was it really that bad?
If the monster isn't Cthulhu then it can't be that great of a movie.
If the monster isn't Cthulhu then it can't be that great of a movie.
roddglenn
New Member
Well I thought it was tense, gritty and edge of the seat stuff. It's what Godzilla should've been like (although I still liked Godzilla). The characters are believable - they start off as a bunch of fairly irritating socialites, but as they are literally thrown from one terrifying scene to another you quickly begin to feel for them. The really good thing about the film is that it is what is not shown that makes everything more scary. You catch glimpses mostly - there's only two scenes where you really get a good look at the monster.
The special effects are second to none and the use of the hand held camera works brilliantly to make you believe you're actually in the thick of the action (although at times you can almost start to feel ill with it all!)
Overall damn good.
The special effects are second to none and the use of the hand held camera works brilliantly to make you believe you're actually in the thick of the action (although at times you can almost start to feel ill with it all!)
Overall damn good.
Anamnesis
Active Member
The camera work was supposed to be awkward and unpolished. With that said, it did give me a headache . . .
The main monster left a bit to be desired, but the mini-monsters were quite scary. Overall the special effects were quite good and after the opening minutes I didn't mind the characters all that much.
I also didn't mind the lack of an explanation about the monster and what it was, which seems to be a complaint from some viewers
I enjoyed it. It takes either a lot of money, or a lot of well laid out plans to keep something of that magnitude secret for so long.
The camera work, like mentioned above, does a great job of putting you in a situation where you believe to actually be there. This is the closest you can really get to what it'd actually be like during an invasion scenario. Not that I know off of first hand experience or anything.
Would you really sit around to make sure everyone in TV land would get a nice portrait shot of the monster?
Overall it was a fun movie and gave a perspective not often seen on the big screen.
The camera work, like mentioned above, does a great job of putting you in a situation where you believe to actually be there. This is the closest you can really get to what it'd actually be like during an invasion scenario. Not that I know off of first hand experience or anything.
Would you really sit around to make sure everyone in TV land would get a nice portrait shot of the monster? Overall it was a fun movie and gave a perspective not often seen on the big screen.
beer good
Well-Known Member
Saw this last night. And I must say that after all the hubbub about it, I was pleasantly surprised. Any time a movie gets this much advance publicity (especially of the sort that this has been getting) it's setting itself up to be torn down, and it's to Cloverfield's advantage that at its heart, it's not really a movie about a big secret or anything of the sort; what you see is what you get, rather lame twist at the end notwithstanding.
The description of Godzilla meets Blair Witch (and I'd add more than just a splash of Miracle Mile too) is pretty spot on - and yet it's something else entirely. Rather like The Host (in fact, at times almost a little too much like The Host) the focus isn't so much on the big consequences of a monster wrecking a major city, but on a bunch of ordinary people trapped in the middle of it and just trying to survive. And here's where it matters to have a good writer (Drew Goddard, take a bow); it's the difference between having a bunch of morons running around screaming for 80 minutes and having actual characters that you can bring yourself to understand and care about (at least a little). The camera work, while annoying, does add to the realism and really pulls you in (at least for most of the time; there are some scenes that seem a little to implausible - for instance, if I had to
, I wouldn't use one hand to film it all); these days, it seems half of every news report from a major catastrophe is made up of amateur footage, which just adds credibility to these shots. It's very hard to watch Cloverfield and not think of the amateur movies of the planes on 9/11, or of the waves of the tsunami, or...
Also, the amateur POV means that we never get an explanation of exactly what happens (one character even turns the camera on himself and tells his audience, "if you're watching this, you probably know more about it than I do"); this is a Good Thing. The situation is always more frightening than the clinical explanation.
Cloverfield doesn't really deserve its hype. It doesn't really need it, either. It's "just" a monster movie, but then again so is King Kong, and while this isn't THAT good it's still a very enjoyable nail-biter of a movie. 3/5.
The description of Godzilla meets Blair Witch (and I'd add more than just a splash of Miracle Mile too) is pretty spot on - and yet it's something else entirely. Rather like The Host (in fact, at times almost a little too much like The Host) the focus isn't so much on the big consequences of a monster wrecking a major city, but on a bunch of ordinary people trapped in the middle of it and just trying to survive. And here's where it matters to have a good writer (Drew Goddard, take a bow); it's the difference between having a bunch of morons running around screaming for 80 minutes and having actual characters that you can bring yourself to understand and care about (at least a little). The camera work, while annoying, does add to the realism and really pulls you in (at least for most of the time; there are some scenes that seem a little to implausible - for instance, if I had to
climb between two collapsing highrise buildings
Also, the amateur POV means that we never get an explanation of exactly what happens (one character even turns the camera on himself and tells his audience, "if you're watching this, you probably know more about it than I do"); this is a Good Thing. The situation is always more frightening than the clinical explanation.
Our "heroes" don't end up saving the city, finding the government conspiracy behind it all, or splashing the monster with salt water; they're heroes on a smaller scale.
Cloverfield doesn't really deserve its hype. It doesn't really need it, either. It's "just" a monster movie, but then again so is King Kong, and while this isn't THAT good it's still a very enjoyable nail-biter of a movie. 3/5.
AEK
New Member
I was forced...
...to go see this because my boyfriend was all about it. I saw/heard all of the things I was supposed to find in the movie and he made sure to point all of them out. I thought the film was decent, just as you said. I believe that all the hype before made this movie better than what it actually is. If there was no extra, secret, discreet things to look out for this movie would have just been another blair witch/monster movie. It's creative how they set up the movie, but it's nothing special in my eyes, just another chance to set up some sequels.
Sadly (with a hint of sarcasm) I wasn't able to watch the whole thing because of the nausea welling up within me. Thanks to that lovely camera angle. Therefore I left the movie with a quezy stomach and distate for the movie. Looking back I realize what the director was trying to get across and I give it a 3.5/5.
...to go see this because my boyfriend was all about it. I saw/heard all of the things I was supposed to find in the movie and he made sure to point all of them out. I thought the film was decent, just as you said. I believe that all the hype before made this movie better than what it actually is. If there was no extra, secret, discreet things to look out for this movie would have just been another blair witch/monster movie. It's creative how they set up the movie, but it's nothing special in my eyes, just another chance to set up some sequels.
Sadly (with a hint of sarcasm) I wasn't able to watch the whole thing because of the nausea welling up within me. Thanks to that lovely camera angle. Therefore I left the movie with a quezy stomach and distate for the movie. Looking back I realize what the director was trying to get across and I give it a 3.5/5.