Movie Review: Cloverfield

As most of you know, I am a huge fan of movies. I have to know what's going on with them all the time. So you can imagine how frustrated I was when I saw the trailer for this film at the end of the past summer. The very first teaser trailer for the film contained only a few scenes from the first few minutes of the film, which hinted towards some disaster that occurs in New York City. Then came a black screen that read "1-18-08", mentioned it was produced by J.J. Abrams, and that was it.

So, of course the trailer looked awesome to me. When I got home, I immediately went to IMDb.com to look up the title for the film. I learned that it was called Untitled J.J. Abrams Project. I was furious. I had to know more. I started looking at some forums and looking up stuff about it. All sorts of rumors were going around about it, but no one knew any more than me.
The marketing for this film was outstanding. NO ONE knew what it was about. There were websites that the film company put up that supposedly had clues to what the film was about. Over time, people began to correctly assume that it was a monster film. The question though was what kind. Many had theories that it was a Godzilla remake based on some of the clues, but still, no one could confirm it. Finally, the film company released a new trailer under the title Cloverfield.

Finally, the film has been released, as it is 1-18-08. I wanted to see this movie first thing so I wouldn't know what it was about. I wanted to be surprised. Well, I was.

If you've seen 28 Days Later, then you know how that film revolutionized zombie or apocalyptic films. What it did for that genre, Cloverfield has done for monster films. I don't want to give anything away, but I will say that I thought it was awesome. You never really see the monster clearly until later, but the way they did the film was great. It's made to be a homemade video shot with a DV camcorder, and the story is told from the perspective of a small group of friends.

If you like monster, apocalyptic, or suspense films, you won't be disappointed by this. I saw I Am Legend, and I liked this much, much better. I definitely say check it out.

My Rating: 8.5 out of 10