DVD Review: Cloverfield

Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives.

“Still filming?”

“Yeah, people are gonna want to know… how it all went down.”

“Well, you can just tell them how it all went down, Hud.”

“No, that wouldn’t work. People need to see this, you know? It’s gonna be important. People are going to watch this.”

Cloverfield does a spectacular job of mixing Godzilla and The Blair Witch Project into a delightfully fun monster movie. It is full of crazy action, emotion, and puts you right smack into the middle of the disaster.

Review:
Cloverfield is a story that centers around a character named Robert Hawkins. It’s his going away party in a loft apartment of New York City. He is preparing to start a new life in Japan, and his close friends have assembled a group of 40 plus people to throw him a fitting goodbye. Unfortunately, the same night of the party, a gigantic creature decides to attack New York City causing the whole Manhattan area to panic worse than on the attacks of September 11th. The entire movie is shot from the first person point of view like The Blair With Project. So if you felt like you had motion sickness from that movie, don’t rent this and feel the need to complain about it. You have been forewarned. The secret to enjoying a movie like this is watch it on a big screen, shut the lights out, don’t pause it, and just pretend you are along for the ride. As long as you do all of those things, there’s no way you can’t enjoy a short and sweet, fresh take on this age old genre that brought you Godzilla and King Kong many years back. You have J.J. Abrams, the creator of the hit TV series Lost to thank for this new, fresh idea. In my opinion, it’s one of the best adventure films so far in 2008.

Review by Charlie Giltenboth

Grade: A-
Official site: http://www.cloverfieldmovie.com/
Buy on Amazon: Cloverfield