Cloverfield (2008)
Cloverfield Movie Review
Cloverfield is a 2008 found-footage horror film directed by Matt Reeves and starring Lizzy Caplan and T. J. Miller. This film is again very overrated and mostly annoying.
“If this is the last thing you see…
that means I died“
It follows a group of people who flee from a monster that attacks the city and the main character films all of this. Now, there lies a major problem in logics department. Why would anyone let him continue to film and be okay with that? That was just stupid and ridiculous. But the entire concept is of course similar to ‘The Blair Witch Project‘ and this film is also mediocre, but is better than that one as it is more entertaining and it has some good scenes here and there.
The main character is absolutely obnoxious and the others aren’t much better. I loathed this disgusting excuse for a human being and he is the major reason for the downfall of this movie. But all of the other characters are also not that great as they are either annoying or forgettable. And the fact that they put up with him the whole time is highly unrealistic and just unfortunate. The acting is also pretty bland and nobody here gave a memorable performance.
Cloverfield isn’t a bad movie because it does have some genuinely intriguing moments from time to time. The tunnel sequence in particular is pretty memorable and intense and some of the earlier action scenes in the city were pretty good. As for the monster, he has an interesting look to it, but not that original in my opinion. Another problem here is that the movie decides to not show the monster at all during its first half, but then it goes in the completely opposite direction and shows it way too much thus effectively removing the suspense that it struggled to achieve.
Yes, Cloverfield was never scary to me. It had the potential to be scary, but it just wasn’t. Also, some scenes here are too disgusting to watch and should have been removed. This film is a found-footage horror flick and I tend to dislike this approach and I didn’t love it here either. It had its moments, but it was for the most part pretty annoying to witness. But the major problem is the scenes where the characters are running. Not only does the apparent continued filming during those times feel utterly ridiculous, but the scenes themselves are hard to follow due to frequent shaking of the camera. It produced a dizzying effect on me and that I hated so much and I found it to be pointless.
The first scenes are also too extended and I don’t know why they focused on character development so much when neither of these characters is even remotely sympathetic. Yes, I respect them for not having bland horror characters, but these are still bad characters that annoyed the hell out of me. But despite that first act, the film is mostly pretty well paced and even surprisingly so. The special effects are really good as the monster does look great. But overall, Cloverfield remains a mediocre movie, neither good nor bad, and definitely an overrated horror flick.
