From the creator of Lost, J.J. Abrams, comes a monster movie that provides a look at how much fear, despair, and chaos would occur if a monster started tearing apart New York City.  The movie provides this idea from the point of view of one of the citizens as he films the entire event with his hand held video camera.

In the same style as The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield provides the first person point of view much like a first person shooter video game where you are the person seeing all the action.  This style allows the audience to feel like they are there in the action. Blair Witch failed because no one really believed the story.  Why should we believe a story about a monster terrorizing a city?  Well, we probably don’t; however, the terror can be related to any type of disaster that may occur, and Cloverfield makes you feel like you are part of the action.  You are able to fear along with the actors.

What is successful in Cloverfield is the fact that no known actors are used.  This assists in helping the audience really believe that we are watching the case file for a disastrous situation.  The actors do a very good job in not playing characters, but instead play a bunch of anybody’s doing what people do within society.  The special effects are impressive especially knowing that this entire movie is portrayed with the use of a hand held camera.  Many times I found myself moving my body dodging debris or the monster which in hindsight is pretty silly, but it shows how effective this filming style was.

There is no soundtrack to this movie because it is trying to portray the “home movie” as if it is evidence from the Department of Defense.  This also makes the movie more believable and gives it a sense of realism.  To begin and end with only text on the screen as a tape of evidence really drives home the fact that this really happened.

The one problem with the film is obvious though…how long can one person sit in a theater and watch a shaky camera until it is completely annoying and bothersome to the brain?  Luckily, the movie is short.  It is a little hard to get used to, but once the  movie turns into disaster mode, the shakiness isn’t bothersome because you feel like you are really there in the midst of the action.  This is definitely one to see at some point.

Similar recommended titles: Blair Witch Project, Godzilla and King Kong