Review of Cloverfield
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Cloverfield follows a small group of New Yorkers trying to survive as their city is laid to waste by a giant monster. What sets Cloverfield apart from other monster movies is that the entire thing is told from the point of view of a hand-held camera carried by one of the characters. The premise being that a camera was found after the events and you are playing it back to understand what happened. The film even goes as far as to open with color bars, time code, and a slate claiming the tape as property of the government.
From the word “play”, this films is absolutely amazing. Never once breaking away from it’s premise, you completely feel like you’re watching events that actually took place. There are no establishing shots or really any conventional camera techniques at all. It’s all just hand-held, eye-witness video in which you only see what the character points the camera at. There is no music except was is playing within the characters environment and every cut is made as if in camera with the record / pause button.
Now this movie is definitely not for everyone. As the credits began to roll, about half of the audience was noticeably upset. This is likely because they walked into the theater expecting Godzilla instead of government archival footage of “actual events”. You may also want to pop a few dramamine before walking into the theater. The shakiness of the footage in this film makes The Bourne Ultimatum look like steady cam work. While this is going to turn away many viewers and though some theaters are even posting warning outside the box office, it completely sells the realism of the movie.
Bottom line, this movie is an absolute win for me. The camera work, dialog, characters, everything is so spot on. I cannot recommend it enough. This was my most anticipated film of the year and for the first time in a while, a film lived up to everything I thought it would be.
posted by Christopher Schnese
