First Reviews of Cloverfield!

By Katey Rich: 2008-01-11 19:14:21

There are lucky bastards, and then there are Harry Knowles and Jeff Wells, Both are movie bloggers with devoted readerships (Knowles for the fans, Wells for the industry know-it-alls), and both are influential enough to get a sneak peek at Cloverfield and become the first guys anywhere to write about it. If you thought the excitement for this movie was already at a frenzy, just wait: both these guys went nuts for it.

"Cloverfield is worth the obsession," writes the always-hyperbolic Knowles. "This is a towering movie. A complete reinvention of the disaster movie, the giant monster movie and even the love story."

Wells, known to hate anything and everything, is more reserved but heavy on the metaphors. "Cloverfield is a monster film unlike any other -- a complete original, but no less of a rock' em-sock 'em for that. It's amazing in that it's so short (by my watch about 74 minutes without credits), and yet so fierce. [...] This movie is REM madness. It is Guillermo del Toro on a tab of brown acid with a little crack thrown in."

I know what you're thinking-- what about the monster?? Weirdly, neither guy is willing to take the bait. The best Knowles gives us is a description of what it is not: "It’s not a fucking upright walking whale. It doesn’t look like any iteration of Godzilla that we’ve ever seen. It is enormous. And even though I’ve seen it… I am hard-pressed to come up with a comparative creation." Wells, again, leans back on questionable metaphors for his description: "He's a nightmare that "means" nothing but says everything. He's a vision out of a Grimm Brothers fable, but one written by a deranged Matt Damon or Heath Ledger while locked in a 19th Century mental ward. He's a fiend that a heroin addict might see in his sleep during his first night in rehab." I have no idea what that means, but it sure sounds terrifying.

Check out each of their reviews for yourself, and feel the anticipation within you grow. Is someone inevitably going to come along and burst our bubble and say Cloverfield is like The Blair Witch Project but less scary? Probably. But right now we're in that great phase where the excitement seems unstoppable, and even the first professional guys to see it can't get enough. Now we know this whole thing wasn't a colossal tease, that we haven't been unwrapping box after box to reveal something utterly disappointing. Cloverfield is going to be the real deal, whatever that turns out to mean.

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xx- jade
November 14, 2008 at 10:50

wunt dare watch it !!!!

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Brenda
September 2, 2008 at 23:21

Just "forced" myself to sit through this movie because I paid $4 to rent the dvd and I hate to waste money. Stupidest thing I have seen to date, and I've seen alot. If you want a good monster movie rent "dynosaur wars."

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StarfoX
July 9, 2008 at 09:37

I just lost all respect for Roger Ebert and the rest of those critics that actually had something good to say about this movie. I have to believe that they spent most of the movie budget on paying off these clowns to say that this movie was worth seeing. The first thing my daughter said after the movie ended was, "I think that was the worst movie that I've ever seen". I replied with, "Yup, I think so too." I can't help thinking that this movie was all just a scam to get people's money.

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Yuriy
May 6, 2008 at 00:17

Hollywood seems to be going further and further down the drain of deception, making quality previews , making people believe they are going to encounter the next best thing, but in the end they are given the best glimpses and are doomed to watch a one and a half hour of nothing. More and more now days I encounter this madness. I think there should be a law prohibiting those degenerates from publishing previews unless it can strongly relate to the movie content.
Clover field was another such attempt to take the money from trusting audience. I think someone needs to start a class action lawsuit and punish those morons by taking everything they make from the movie unless they will learn to deliver exactly what they promise, i.e. if the preview is good , movie better be good , but if they preview is good and the movie stole your money , take it back through courts !

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Sandman
February 20, 2008 at 13:18

Typical yanks - a film tries to make you think, and you don't get it. Why do other people have to do your thinking for you.

Best monster film I've seen in a while.Using a hand-held cam was a good idea - you're not supposed to know where the monsters come from etc., you're supposed to be as much in the dark as the characters.

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herr
February 3, 2008 at 14:08

oh my........!!! i aslo jz came bck from d cinema.. it was d 1st time i saw ppl leave during d movie!!!!!!
it's really d worst movie tat i hv ever watched.. in my life...

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rob_aishcross
February 1, 2008 at 17:53

Just got back from the cinema. Didnt really connect with the characters, didnt care if they died or not. I thought Rob the main character was meant to be intelligent - just got a VP job, but he makes stupid decisions and his friends and the authorities let him get away with it - all for love!?. The jerky hand held approach and flashing lights caused me to come out of the cinema with a head ache and I vomited I can only put this down to the effects as I feel fine now.
Good effects, sort of scary monster, other things derivative of Alien, Starship Troopers and other sci fi monsters etc (maybe an honourable nod in their direction by the director)

Just didn't really get it. Would not recommend it

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Stephanie
January 30, 2008 at 19:05

I haven't seen this movie. I don't ever plan to.

It's a Godzilla-esque movie.

Here's how it goes... everything's going fine and dandy, but oh-no! Here comes the monster. rawr rawr rawr. panic panic panic. boom crash ka-pow. end of movie. See? I could tell you that without having to waste $8.

Jesus Christ.

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jadee
January 27, 2008 at 02:55

After watching this movie I Thought OMG its 2008 and this is the crap they expect us to watch now, You get all the media giving it such fulfilling reviews, you get guys coming on the blogs and forums saying its the best movie they have ever seen how old are they six ?? lol ..

This movie is the worst you are ever going to see believe me the people came out of the cinema laughing at the thought they had just been conned..
the script was dreadful some guys even say you have to go to see the camera man hes funny "he has to be to keep you from walking out in the first place" and is that supposed to make us like the movie no !! the FX were the worst and the monster Ive seen spookier reflections in my mirror ..and you only see it about 4 times of which you could not see properly No don't believe all this souped up hype save your money and go see a good movie to take you out of the norm.. not this stupid movie cloverfield :)

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danny camp
January 21, 2008 at 03:08

This move was bad acting and gave me a headach, save your
money, or take asprin before you go to see it.

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No one
January 20, 2008 at 21:14

I hated the movie. I didnt understand it and it gave me a headache.

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cyan
January 20, 2008 at 21:14

an 1:30 minute headache in my opinion, about 30 minutes of actual enjoyable footage and then and hour's worth of trying to figure out what was going on... a real headache.. they probably should have just left it at the party i think i was more interested in that guy getting dissed by the girl who ended up exploding than the rest of the crap... some of the suspense was actually commendable.. but as i stated above.. 30 minutes of pleasure.. an hour of pain....kinda like really bad sex....oh and as for the ending? totally sucked....the worse part of any movie is when you drag out the main characters' passion and then just have everyone die... i mean wtf... "i have an idea.. at the end.. lets just make everyone die!" wait for the dvd... rent it.. throw it away.. and then pay your vendor and tell them it was totally worth trashing....

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scarletjedi
January 20, 2008 at 02:30

Hey F Barnes...you'll be more of a credible critic if you believe in writing with proper punctuation marks? You write like a 4 year old, therefore, your review is as credible as me getting a date with Liv Tyler.

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Japanese Sci-Fi Film/Story Analyses
January 20, 2008 at 02:28

To start, the graphics sucked, and the story line was cheap! J.J. Abrams should be ashamed of himself for calling himself a Godzilla fan. Thank God this was not another remake of Godzilla or another Japanese film. Fact: Americans don't do well with remakes of Japanese Anime or Live Action films. The commercials don't hold up to ones expectations. The commercials make it seem that this is going to be about a giant monster and J.J. Abrams even has said this on TV short interviews. Fact is this is not about a giant monster at all; it is about a guy trying to save his girlfriend from the havoc situation-taking place. Holding the camcorder thing does not work well here; it only worked in Blair Witch. Save your money and wait until it comes out on DVD, and even then wait until it goes off the "New Release" section to save even more money. The acting was poor to boot.

From: An Expert Japanese Sci-Fi Film/Story Analyses

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Dragonangelx001
January 20, 2008 at 02:26

I judge a movie is good based on the amount of emotion it invokes and I would have to say this invoked plenty of emotions. There were parts that made me chuckle, parts that made me sad, and parts that scared the hell out of me. I saw some renditions of the monster on Deviantart ahead of time and I'm very happy that it wasn't an upright whale. I really couldn't begin to describe it. And the "lice" that came off it looked like the crawlers from Starship Troopers.
The fact that its all filmed with a hand held camera gives it a sense that it really happened. This film, i would say, is a cross between Godzilla and Blair Witch. Both half's sucked, i know. But the whole is greater than its parts. Thumbs up in my book.

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Tomohawk Jamie
January 19, 2008 at 19:14

all of you people are crazy. this movie was crazy. it was awesome. it was pretty much crazyawsome. your mother liked it

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B-RANDT
January 19, 2008 at 03:42

this movie sucked. when it was done everyone just started laughing like, "what the hell did I just watch" ...terrable movie.

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William Douglas
January 18, 2008 at 17:06

I agree although there were small parts i liked it was more of a headache than a good movie and the ending totally sticks up the place I definately feel like I got ripped off watching this one in the theater for $10 a pop for a ticket. Wait for it on dvd next month or OnDemand the same day as the DVD comes out.

I hope JJ does a better job with Star Trek 11

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Forrest Barnes
January 16, 2008 at 12:22

Cloverfield has got to be one of the biggest diasapointments in Hype that I have ever seen I consider this film a 90 min Headache
The acting if you call it that was terrible the monster looked like a rejected prototype from Steven Kings The Mist the camera kept jumping that if tou tried to see what what happening it would give you a Migrane I thought maybe it was just me that all the years of seeing Wells,Karloff,and Godzilla maybe I was just too old for this one but that was not the case I decided to wait outside the theatre and listen to the the comments from the others who viewed the movie and the others as they left summed it up in one word phrases liked Reeked,Sucked,waste,one young man said a bit more it was I belive "Toatally Sucked" so I guess it was not me it is a terrible movie one that with all the hype will probably be #1 on monday morning but alot of people will be pissed off after paying what they are charged
I have to say wait this one out and if you have to see it Netflicks ill probably have it next month save your money.

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