CLOVERFIELD

CLOVERFIELD... MAKE SURE THE DRAMAMINE IS NEAR
Long ago and far away, I can recall Saturday afternoons spent with my brother watching Godzilla movies and drinking Dr. Pepper. Cloverfield is the new version of Godzilla. The film begins at a loft in Manhattan, full of 20-something beautiful and fabulous people. Everything is going well and then the lights go out and the ground moves. When the lights come back on, they watch the news, assuming it was an earthquake, and see that "something" is wrong in Manhattan... really wrong. So the movie is about who lives and who dies (and how they die) and just when you think it's over... "Hud: Okay, just to be clear here, our options are: die here, die in the tunnels, or die in the streets. That pretty much it? Rob: Yeah... that's pretty much it". This isn't a movie I would normally rent, but all the "blood/country" still in my system and I wanted something different. Overall, I was pretty impressed with Cloverfield. No big named stars, but it was easy to forget they were actors. One guy brought a camera with them as they fled and most of this is seen through his eyes/the camera lens. That was what I hated about the Blair Witch Project. It was hard to follow all the bumpy camera work without feel nauseated. This film has some very realistic scenes (I felt a flash of the WTC attack) just as many unbelievable scenes. It was just the right mix to make each cancel the other out. The worst feeling isn't the fear, but the dread; running from an invisible, but still very big, bad enemy; literally fighting for your life. Cloverfield, by the way, originally was a working name for the movie, but comes from the boulevard that the production offices were located on in Santa Monica during this shoot.
PICK: Entertaining and scary without being overly gruesome or bloody. Not for children!