Cloverfield

Even though it wants to look The Blair Witch Project in terms of realism, there were many scenes that felt unnatural, for example, the attack by the little aliens, the infection of a loved one or the helicopter. I'm just not able to believe that at such pivotal moments, when my life (or that of my loved ones) is on the line, I would still be willing to view my surroundings through a camera screen, no way. Otherwise, a perfectly done job (the effects, the production design, the monster’s appearance) and a deliciously apocalyptic atmosphere with some shots that take on a sweetly surreal touch (e.g. a white horse pulling a carriage at the epicentre of the monster's rampage). The experience is multiplied many times over if you can watch the film in a darkened cinema on a big screen and with a top-notch sound system. (16/05/2008)

It is a blast, but sometimes the excessive effort to push for authenticity at all costs can be bothersome. After all, there are simply moments when even the toughest journalist, reporter or cameraman wouldn’t be able hold the camera and would run to save their own life. So besides the fact that director, Matt Reeves, basically shouts to the world “look how realistically I filmed this” thanks to these scenes, the film does not suffer from any significant shortcomings. The characters behave quite believably, the chaos and confusion are excellently portrayed, and the sense of unpredictability is brilliant. Only the clichéd subplots of the story (except for the rampage of the monster and the rescue of the loved one – as later revealed) get a bit boring, but among all the explosions, shooting, and falling buildings, there is not much time for it anyway. (23/06/2008)

Cloverfield is an obvious mix of The Blair Witch Project and Godzilla, taking the best and the worst from both of them. The entire film is shot with a handheld camera, so those who hate shaky images need to consider whether they should invest their time in it at all before watching it. The film's running time is perfectly adequate – an hour and a quarter – and I wasn't actually bored, why the 3* then? To be honest, I was a bit more annoyed with our famous "cameraman" who filmed everything, everyone and everywhere, but then again, there would have been nothing to watch. I didn't like the script either, but the look of the monster and the CGI action scenes were excellent. In short, a film that no doubt deserves a large fanbase, but I didn't find my way to it, which in this case is a shame. (01/07/2011)

"I'm documenting." I am devastated that Cloverfield is just an average picture. It was a really nice idea (despite being pipped to the post by that Spanish zombie movie - Rec - that I’m intrigued to see). That goes hand in hand with the convincing stylization. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the sound is just perfect. The music composition during the closing credits was just delicious. And lastly the entire movie up to the storming by the army was absolutely gripping. Unfortunately, the creators then ran out of ideas, just recycling those already used, all of a sudden the chosen style no longer has anything to offer and primarily the characters’ reaches the pinnacle of illogicality and starts to be actively annoying. If this were just another classic Godzilla movie, that wouldn’t matter at all, but pseudo-documentaries trying to be “what would happen if" realistic, this is really surprising and ruins the entire concept. And the last five minutes really puts the icing on the cake. Why couldn’t it have finished with that fall? This way, although it has a clean running time of about seventy five minutes, in the end even that is too long. And it’s a huge shame. (27/01/2008)

A demonstration of an ineffective effect. For most of the short runtime of the film, I felt that I was witnessing the realization of a typically sparse screenplay of a disaster film, which was cleverly wrapped in refined technical means and served to the audience raw. Unfortunately, this does not change the fact that under the raw packaging, Cloverfield is baked, in some places even burned. In fact, the technical design must also be seen in the context of the time period - just look at the extent to which the handheld camera dominates, for example, in contemporary American series. From this perspective, producer J. J. Abrams perfectly found the pulse of the time period and presented the audience with a film with a familiar appearance and content that fully suits the current obsession of people with feeling threatened. Unfortunately, Cloverfield is no more than wrapping, and even this wrapping only plays on the first signal. This film is only image and sound. Bad characters, affected actors, no content. Although this is undoubtedly a quality genre film, the way in which the film's carelessly obscured conventionality shines through disappointed me. Despite my modest expectations... [6/10] (28/01/2008)