In the last several years, I have seen many movie trailers that have ended up showing entirely too much and have even given away important information. That didn't happen with the trailer I saw for Cloverfield. It showed just enough to get me intrigued without giving away much of anything. Now I wish I had known more about the movie before deciding to see it.

Lily Frank and her boyfriend Jason Hawkins were planing a party for Jason’s brother Rob. It was meant to be a farewell party since Rob was leaving to take a new job in Japan. Jason was supposed to videotape messages from everyone for Rob, but he put the job off on their friend Hud who picked up on the weird tension between Rob and their friend Beth. They went off to the hall to have a discussion and Beth ended up leaving. Right after that, something happened that seemed to be an earthquake. It didn’t take long for them to figure out that something else entirely was going on. Some sort of monster was attacking the city. Everyone was trying to get out Manhattan when Rob received a call from Beth, who was trapped in her apartment. Rob decided that he was going to get her with Lily, Hud, and another woman named Marlena going along.

I went into Cloverfield not knowing much of anything about the movie other than the fact that something was attacking Manhattan. Since I was interested in seeing the movie, I avoided reading reviews so I wouldn’t find out too much about it. Now I wish I had read some reviews so I would have had some warning about how the entire movie featured the shaky camera work that I despise. It got on my nerves during the first few minutes before much of anything was even happening and it just got worse as the movie continued. I get that it was an attempt to make things seem more realistic by making it look like all the footage had been shot by one of the people experiencing everything with a video camera, but it just didn’t work for me. All the jerky, blurry footage did was give me a headache as I struggled to try to tell what was going on. Shaky camera work has bothered me in other movies as well, but I don’t think any have been as bad as what was done in this movie. People who don’t care for that type of camera work, especially if it gives them headaches or makes me nauseous should stay far away from this movie.

At first, people may think that the way Cloverfield was filmed made the movie really unique. I was even thinking that for a while myself. Then I remembered that the same technique of making the entire movie look like it was footage filmed on a video camera by someone involved in strange events was already done by The Blair Witch Project almost ten years ago. I think the concept worked better with that movie and the shaky camera work didn’t bother me as much with it either. At least I don’t remember it bothering me that much since it has been a long time since I saw it. The main difference in the look of the movies is that Cloverfield doesn’t look as low budget and it even included some decent looking effects.

There really wasn’t much of a plot to Cloverfield. Many times there isn’t in this type of movie, but I did think there would be a little more than there was. The footage from the party was boring, pointless, and seemed to drag on entirely too long. That got the movie off to a very slow start. Even once things started to happen, it wasn’t as interesting as I had thought it would be. The majority of the movie featured a few people running around the city trying to avoid the monster to get to another friend. Every so often, brief glimpses of the monster were shown along with people running screaming through the streets. That didn’t make for a very interesting movie in my opinion. I wanted to know more about the monster and where it came from, something that was never explained. That would have made the movie more interesting for me. I don’t mind movies that make me think or require me to pay attention. I do like for there to be some sort of closure and this movie didn’t have that. It seemed pretty clear that one thing happened, but there were just too many things left unanswered or unexplained.

There was really just a small group of characters in Cloverfield, none of which were that interesting or developed. Rob had gotten a new job at some company that was never identified in Japan and was supposed to be leaving soon. His relationship with Beth was complicated and they didn’t seem to be ready to resolve things until after the monster attacked. Beth was actually only in a small amount of the movie.

It was clear that Jason and Lily had been involved for a while, but there didn’t seem to be much chemistry between them. Hud wasn’t really shown that much since he was the one filming for most of the movie. There didn’t seem to be much reason for Marlena to be there to begin with since she really wasn’t one of Rob’s friends. None of the characters were developed much and I really didn’t care much about what was happening to them either. The cast was mostly unknown, with actors who haven’t done much else. They all were fine though nothing special in the parts.

Main Cast

Lizzy Caplan - Marlena
Jessica Lucas - Lily
T.J. Miller - Hud
Michael Stahl-David - Rob
Mike Vogel - Jason
Odette Yustman - Beth

Matt Reeves - Director

I had hoped that Cloverfield would be entertaining, but I ended up disappointed with the movie. I didn’t really care for the characters and I couldn’t stand the shaky camera work. I had been hoping for something entertaining after working long hours for six days in a row. I wish I had picked some other movie instead. I realize that I’m in the minority in not liking this movie, but I feel like it was very over hyped and not that good of a movie. At least there was a preview for Iron Man that looked cool before the movie started.



Recommended: No