|
First let me start off by talking about the hype. I don't think, at this point, that Cloverfield is completely separateable from the hype surrounding Cloverfield. A lot of people I guess played the ARG, freeze-framed the preview, whatever. All I can say for myself is I saw the teaser and the trailer, and went in expecting something better than "Godzilla" with Matthew Broderick, and I thought it delivered. I'm going to give the rest of this review in bullet points, because shut up. - Shakeycam: The use of handhelds was, in my eyes, very successful. It helped give an immediacy to the thing, it was a cool stylistic choice. And yes, there's a ton of stuff that's less than realistic about having a camera work perfectly for a long night of monster-madness, but whatever, it's a movie. I'm fairly sensitive to motion sickness and the lick, the Borne movies are usually hard for me to watch, and had no problems with the film. Other people I went to see it with couldn't keep their eyes on the screen for too long or they'd vomit. So judge based on your own stomach. One last note: Frequently "shakecam" also refers to a style of editing, especially in fight scenes. I loving loathe this style, and feel like it prevents the viewer from seeing anything that's happening. This is my main problem with the Borne movies, or the newest Batman movie. Cloverfield, while shot on handhelds, did not really have this. Most of the action was surprisingly clear. - Characters: The characters in Cloverfield were well drawn and better developed than most monster movie fodder. Having said that, this is not a movie about the inner lives of several hipster Manhattanites, we have Wes Anderson for that. I thought the first twenty minutes, before the monster attacked, drew the characters skillfully. I liked them and understood what they were doing. Honestly though, I didn't end up caring all to much about them - they were people I was on the ride with, and not much more. In this, they served well. They worked as good narrators, and points of reference, but the movie was more about the monster than them. -Realism: Okay, okay. Rob was stupid, Beth should have been dead, the Solider never should have let them out, whatever. It made it more fun, so it should have stayed in. -The Monster: I feel like a lot of people, both in this thread, and in the theater, were let down by the monster. I have no idea what people were expecting. Maybe some kind of explanation? But that completely goes against the premise of the movie, the whole found-footage thing. Anyway the monster was cool. The "zerglings" were not used well enough, they seemed really to only add one or two suspense sequences, but the big bad was good looking, scary, and fun. I don't know what else to say. Overall: Overall Cloverfield was an extremely fun movie. It felt like a theme park ride, it felt on-rails and maybe guided by stupid people, but it delivered near constant thrills. Unless you can't stomach shakey-cam or have a hard on for proving fantasy to be unrealistic, you'll like this. 4/5 - A very, very solid and fun monster movie. Not "great," but a skilled and sucessful genre flick.
|
#
¿
Jan 19, 2008 01:05
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 3, 2024 04:18 |
|