Cloverfield is here. It has been a long and glorious wait, essentially six months worth of hype, anticipation, mystery
and rumors. And you know what? Cloverfield lives up to the buzz.
Cloverfield , if you''ve been living in a cave, is the monster movie from producer J.J. Abrams. In reality, Abrams has been getting all the credit even though Matt Reeves, who really hasn''t directed anything of significance other than a few episodes of "Felicity", is the credited director. Regardless, the movie is shot through some handheld cameras and follows a group of young people through Manhattan as they try to escape the island during an assault on the city by a gigantic, seemingly invincible creature. The movie doesn''t try to explain where the creature came from and instead provides a snapshot of what ordinary citizens might experience if such a situation were to occur. In other words, Cloverfield is everything that Matthew Broderick''s Godzilla should have been.
And let''s get the record straight. Cloverfield is not about the Godzilla monster, despite some rumors to the contrary. The monster here is quite unique and pretty impressive. It''s hard to pull off monsters without looking cheesy, but Cloverfield is particularly effective. The perspective of the film helps a lot, as the movie focuses entirely on its main characters and not on the monster itself. For much of the movie, you only see pieces of the creature from a distance or on the news. The result is a more believable feel to the film, not unlike what was seen in The Host last year (but a little more exciting).