Cloverfield follows five New Yorkers from the perspective of a hand-held video camera. The movie is exactly the length of a DV Tape and a sub-plot is established by showing bits and pieces of video previously recorded on the tape that is being recorded over. The movie starts as a monster of unknown origin destroys a building. As they go to investigate, parts of the building and the head of the Statue of Liberty come raining down. The movie follows their adventure trying to escape and save a friend, a love interest of the main character.
I count this as one of the very few, good, found footage films.
The acting is generally good.. even the nervous ramblings of our cameraman, Hud, who is scared out of his wits. The story line, perhaps not so much.. but, there wouldn’t be much of a movie if our group of youngsters followed instructions and evacuated with the rest of Manhattan, eh?
I feel the concealing of the monster, until the very end, was a great call. Honestly, the first time I saw this one, I was actually trying to look around buildings.. on the screen.. yeah, it just brought a great amount of suspense with hints and quick glimpses of the creature.
I also loved that there was no real explanation of what it was, where it came from, and what it was doing. Of course, there are a lot of fan theories, like, Cloverfield is a baby, newly awakened and scared out of its mind.. it’s roar would be more like cries for its mother. I like that one.
Now, the general consensus is that the monster is not dead, and there may be a Cloverfield 2 – Honestly, I hope not. I think this movie stands well on its own and no further explanation is needed.
