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Movie Review #51 - Cloverfield
Took me while to digest this movie and sort out what I liked and didn't like about it.
ETA: the scariest thing about this movie - Drew Goddard's new haircut!
First check of the watch - watch? what watch?
Once the action starts, it is certainly non-stop from that point onwards. The bit before that was well done, just enough to get us invested in the characters without dragging on. After all, WE WANT TO SEE "IT", whatever it may be. I like the POV here - we're not with one of the big players not do we even know what is really happening. That, combined with the often claustrophobic spaces that the action happens in, along with the "shakey-cam" point of view of the movie gives this a really personal, immediate feel.
The chaos, confusion and general pandemonium was heartfelt for me - when they were going across the (Brooklyn?) bridge, that crowd scene was just so realistic, so compressed that I broke out in a sweat (I don't like densely packed crowds at the best of times).
The 911 parallels were there - the giant rolling dust cloud and the dust-coated survivors staggering around certainly evoked some of the most distinctive images from that day. However, and wisely, I thought, the vast majority of the action took place at ground level or below so that stopped the parallel from staying too close.
The dialogue was well written - it is Ultimate Drew, after all - although Hud's much-repeated "Rob! Rob!" did grate on me after a while.
And the beast - well, what can I say but that it was menacing and repulsive enough that I was hoping the bombs would splatter it from one end of the city to the other. What was it - who knows or cares? It was simply big, mean and in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the little critters were thoroughly repulsive too, so much so that I enjoyed every bone-crunching splatter that we saw!
I liked the ending as well - Cloverfield 2 anyone? I joke - you could not do this again and get away with it. And at about 74 minutes running time, that was probably as long as I could stand any way!
Overall, I enjoyed this in the same way that I enjoy roller coasters. I feel kind of sick at the end, vow that I'll never do it again and then get a bit of a buzz from the adrenalin rush, once the nausea has passed.
ETA: the scariest thing about this movie - Drew Goddard's new haircut!
First check of the watch - watch? what watch?
Once the action starts, it is certainly non-stop from that point onwards. The bit before that was well done, just enough to get us invested in the characters without dragging on. After all, WE WANT TO SEE "IT", whatever it may be. I like the POV here - we're not with one of the big players not do we even know what is really happening. That, combined with the often claustrophobic spaces that the action happens in, along with the "shakey-cam" point of view of the movie gives this a really personal, immediate feel.
The chaos, confusion and general pandemonium was heartfelt for me - when they were going across the (Brooklyn?) bridge, that crowd scene was just so realistic, so compressed that I broke out in a sweat (I don't like densely packed crowds at the best of times).
The 911 parallels were there - the giant rolling dust cloud and the dust-coated survivors staggering around certainly evoked some of the most distinctive images from that day. However, and wisely, I thought, the vast majority of the action took place at ground level or below so that stopped the parallel from staying too close.
The dialogue was well written - it is Ultimate Drew, after all - although Hud's much-repeated "Rob! Rob!" did grate on me after a while.
And the beast - well, what can I say but that it was menacing and repulsive enough that I was hoping the bombs would splatter it from one end of the city to the other. What was it - who knows or cares? It was simply big, mean and in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the little critters were thoroughly repulsive too, so much so that I enjoyed every bone-crunching splatter that we saw!
I liked the ending as well - Cloverfield 2 anyone? I joke - you could not do this again and get away with it. And at about 74 minutes running time, that was probably as long as I could stand any way!
Overall, I enjoyed this in the same way that I enjoy roller coasters. I feel kind of sick at the end, vow that I'll never do it again and then get a bit of a buzz from the adrenalin rush, once the nausea has passed.