Cloverfield (Theatre) - Both

The marketing for this film was, in my opinion, sheer genius. If you watched Transformers this summer you were treated to a preview that portrayed a going away party. This party seemed pretty normal till all hell broke loose and screaming, running, and general mayhem took over. The last shot saw the head of the statue of liberty fly by and land in the street, ripped from its body. The last sound was someone yelling, "I saw it, it's alive, it's huge!" Then no name, no nothing, just 1-18-08 (the release date).
Now, most people have come to know that this is a monster movie. Simple. Monster comes - attacks city - people panic, but Cloverfield has its niche. Not only does it succeed as a solid monster film, it also adds a chaotic first person view. This allows Cloverfield to succeed beyond the other alumni. The sometimes nausea inducing camera work plays to the fear accompanying the characters as they make there way through the hoops the writers make them transverse. The drawback of this device is that there always had to be a reason someone was taping everything, which in a run for your life situation, seems pretty ludicrous. The writers didn’t necessarily succeed in coming up with reasons for this, but I can forgive them this in most instances.
I have seen Cloverfield likened to The Blair Witch Project (July 1999) which I can see, but I believe that is a shallow reference. Yes, the first person view lends itself to the reference, but that is about it. Ultimately this reference simply states that this is the only other movie to have used this device so successfully. However, I would liken it to The Host (July 2006) a South Korean monster movie that, if you watch, seems to be Cloverfield's long-lost brother. I can picture J.J. Abrams sitting with his buddies watching it and saying, “We should totally make a monster flick!” The similarities are many, but the most glaring would have to be its devotion not to the monster, but to the characters. Abram’s film focused on the humans in the situation and not the monster. The monster was an afterthought, a catalyst, but defiantly not the focus. This is why both of these movies succeed and movies like Godzilla (1998 film) fail so miserably. This is not to say the writers did this that well, the dialog was vapid, the characters were thin, and their motivations were confusing, but it is always interesting to see humans react, even unsuccessfully, to sheer terror.
Spoiler Alert:
The way this movie ranks so high to me though, is that it does the one thing you expect to happen when and if a monster were to attack an island. Everyone dies. I love that. It makes everything seem that much more realistic (I know, I know). But, they die too late. The movie would have been a complete success if the Manhattan scenes ended about five minutes earlier than they did: when the helicopter crashes. End it. *Crackle* It’s still alive *Crackle* then Coney Island scene. But no, they had to have a soliloquy by the last two characters before they die. Ho Hum. The second ending, the Coney Island scene was great. And did you see the monster’s origin in that scene? Or did you miss it?

8 out of 10: Succeeded on all levels that it wanted to, at times the melodrama was too much.

Transformers Trailer: