Dvd
Cloverfield
The exact nature of the beast has not been disclosed, and will not be revealed in any marketing material other than the movie itself. Curiousity, it has to be said, is killing us.
Starring Blake Lively, Odette Yustman, Mike Vogel, Lizzy Caplan, Michael Stahl-David
Directed by Matt Reeves ('The Pallbearer', TV's 'Felicity')
Written by Drew Goddard
Executive Producer JJ Abrams ('Mission: Impossible III', TV's 'Alias', 'Lost')
1hr 24mins | Rated (M) | Fantasy Violence | Origin: USA | Official Site »
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The Talk
13 votes / 1 comments
Flicks review
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4
Cloverfield is a compact, intense, unrelenting monster of a movie. A gigantic, ghastly beast (realised very convincingly) rips apart Manhattan and its unexpecting inhabitants. The action, in its entirety, is presented as handicam footage "found" after the attack.
Once the threat is announced in central New York, its full throttle. Our cameraman Hud (T.J. Miller) insists “people will want to know how it all went down” and captures our characters' plight to save friends and get out of the city.
It’s a clever film, and one could read into it a relevance to youtubers, myspacers & facebookers, as well America’s fear of terrorism. Indeed it’s the best monster movie in a long time (alongside last year’s very different The Host) but, more than anything, Cloverfield is hugely entertaining. A good, old-fashioned, fun night out at your local cinema.
The great thing about it is that while staying faithful to the gimmick (the movie never leaves the view of the handicam) the filmmakers have still been able to build tension, create scares and structure a satisfying watch. Within it are many contrivances (the fall and rise of a romance is also caught between monster mashing), but being left to see the disaster unfold just as the characters have is great - you know what’s going on only as much as they do. And yip, you get a good look at the monster. The lack of explanation around the monster’s origins might irritate some, but the film is stronger for not knowing.
Technically it’s quite a feat. It sells the realism of the handicam ‘look’ but doesn’t distract by cleverly maintaining a high production value. Convenient lighting at convenient times mean you always see what you need to see. The CGI is flawless.
It’s a shame the film and its characters are rather sanitized. The characters are gorgeous young yuppies who never swear (the kind of people you’d hate unless their lives were in danger), and while the action is scary it’s not terrifying. Plus there’s overt product placement. But it’s all forgivable because the movie is just so much fun. If you can accept the conceit, Cloverfied is a short, sharp and intense rollercoaster. Sit near the back of the cinema.
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The people's reviews
15 reviews
Press Reviews
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BBC
4
Godzilla meets YouTube in this corking sci-fi thriller from Lost producer JJ Abrams and director Matt Reeves. Cloverfield's brilliantly simple gimmick is to take a traditional monster movie scenario and shoot the carnage from ground up, using a single camcorder carried by one of the protagonists. The action is relentless: we get five minutes of introductions at a going-away party for chiselled yuppie Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David), then something goes boom in Manhattan and it's wall-to-wall peril...
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Empire Magazine [UK]
4
Believe the hype - Cloverfield is an impressive twist on the blockbuster disaster movie...
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NZ Herald [Russell Baillie]
4
Throughout, Cloverfield pulls off the trick of generating tension from what it doesn't reveal or what might be lurking just out of frame. That's an old trick, of course, and there's not really a lot new about Cloverfield, apart from its ground-level perspective. But there's no denying its inventiveness or intensity, and both are sure to make this New York demo tape a monster hit...
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Stuff.co.nz [Chris Shulz]
4
It does everything a good monster movie should. It’ll thrill, it’ll shock, and it’ll quite likely scare the bejeezus out of you. Depending on your tolerance of handycams, it may very well make you sick...
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The Hollywood Reporter
Think "Godzilla Unplugged" -- with chillingly effective results...
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TV3 [Kate Rodger]
3
1/2 Seeing what unfolds through a personal video racks up the tension perfectly, up close and intimate, and with some consistently strong performances by a cast of relative unknowns. Despite that intimacy, the film failed to build any real attachment to the characters, but purely from a visual perspective, and for the ride, Cloverfield definitely kept me entertained, and even felt quite fresh....
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Variety [USA]
An old-fashioned monster movie dressed up in trendy new threads, "Cloverfield" plays like "The Blair Witch Project" meets "Godzilla," as it charts via camcorder the desperate efforts of some twentysomething Soho scenesters to steer clear of a gigantic beast laying waste to Manhattan. Despite its indie-flavored shooting style, first-rate visual effects, reasonable intensity factor, nihilistic attitude and post-9/11 anxiety overlay, this punchy sci-fier is, in the end, not much different from all the marauding creature features that have come before it...
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CSBright
good movie
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