Cloverfield Review

So at 12:01 am on Friday I saw Cloverfield, a movie I had been anticipating since the first trailer before Transformers in July. I love hype. Big big fan of hype, somehow though I have been able to love hype and yet not let it affect the thing I am so hyped about. I can get hyped and still be let down or buy into a bunch of hype and still love the thing I was super hyped up about. Cloverfield not only came with the hype of the "mysterious" trailer, but then months and months of ARG web hype.

So when the lights came down on Friday morning and the opening screen title about this being footage found in the area "formerly known as Central Park" I was ready for anything. The movie which by now you probably know is filmed on handheld cameras. Well more specifically one handheld camera. As we follow a group of four friends from a going away party to trying to find a lost friend and get the hell out of New York City before a monster destroys them. The monster ends up being the least of their problems. Once the monster attacks the city the movie takes off and never really lets up...really. The shaky cam starts shaking and the shaking doesn't stop for nearly the entire movie. The heroes of the film are constantly on the run, from monsters, from debris, from the military.

Forget everything you think, you think you know about this movie. It's not the blair witch, it's not Godzilla, it's not a documentary, it's like nothing you have ever seen before. A gajillion dollar special effects movie filmed on a handheld camera. The sense that you are actually there running down the streets of New York while being chased by something, anything is perfectly captured. There are so many mind blowing moments, images you will never forget it's unlike anything else.

I beg of you to go see this movie, I beg of you to get off the internet and stop trying to figure out what this movie is. Just go see it. Don't worry about if the monster is bad ass or who lives and who dies? Forget about where the monster comes from or why it's here or if it's even a monster at all. Just walk into that theater with a clean slate and prepare to be blown away.