This guy should be running this website.

Seeing Cloverfield... is very much like making love to a beautiful woman...

B b b b
I, i, i, i
G, g, g, g
L, l, l, l
I, i, i, i
O, o, o, o
N, n, n, n

We can dance like a lion
He is the king of beasts
And when he starts growin'
Destruction he’s sowin'
Takes down buildings like a wildebeest

Say, we can dance like a lion
We can take part in the hunt
Predatory cat will own your ass
Now everybody’s on the run

We can dance like a lion
New York City is now his jungle
Watch him eat yo’ peeps up and down the street
Kill your main dude and your uncle

Say, we can dance, we can dance
And I doth quote “[It is] huge”
We can dance, we can dance
Lookin’ for a bridge to chew
We can dance, we can dance
He’s breakin the convenience store glass
We can dance, we can dance
Blood fillin' all your safari pants

It’s the Lion Dance
The Lion Dance
The Lion
Yeah!

It's the LION DANCE!!!

The whole thing is filmed from a video camera, but it's not bad, it's not a bad thing. I thought even though the trailer showed the potential in the idea of a monster movie filmed from a camcorder to make it seem realistic, that after a while it would would hurt your eyes because of crazy camera work. But not so. There is crazy camera work at places but for the most part it's steady and just when the action beats start where they are running or something crazy is happening does it go crazy and yes it does feel realistic. In fact very realistic.

This is a big movie by the way, the scale. I mean most big scale movies have certain set pieces that are choreographed to show certain destruction etc but this monster(which isn't humanoid by the way) fucks up ALL of Manhattan, there is no limit to what they intend the monster to do. Manhattan is up for grabs.

The start of the movie has it establishing the main players including that guy Rob(from the trailer) and this girl who he has a romantic connection with then people at the party. It's handled really well and you know who these people are when shit goes down. Everything is paced perfectly and edited perfectly to set it up when the Monster attacks. So then the monster attacks and it's insane. It's very realistic well for what I imagine a monster attacking NY would be like, including people taking photos of the Statue of Liberty's head with their camera phones, looting stores etc. There's action beats and then a storyline created where during the evacuation the Rob guy has to go rescue said girl whom he has romantic feelings with. So everything unfolds like that.

What astounded me is like I said the scale, the set design, the way the story unfolds and what happens to the characters unfolds and how it's cut together. It's big. I mean the destruction is huge, everything is torn down. And the camera work is just great especially the way they edit it.

There's this sequence when the main players are in the centre of the city, the monster comes out, then an RPG missile flies past and the camera turns to show the military just giving it all they have and the monster fucking shit up. Intense. The shots they decided to use were genius, especially the way they show the Monster. There is this other shot of the players watching tv and the tv camera showing the monster drop pieces off itself which turn into these fast moving big dog size spiders and the military trying to shoot them down. I have to say visually it is very awesome.

I loved how there is no explanation, it's just a monster attacking a city, people trying to survive, the military dealing with it the best way they can(they are just there, we don't know what they are going to do, what their plans are which is awesome) and then just seeing how it unfolds. I think the hype was well deserved, this is a very entertaining movie that brings a twist to something classic. This is what Godzilla 98 should have been, at least entertainment wise. I'm pretty sure this will be huge, of course there will be the aicn detractors, there always are(people talking shit about there will be blood, are you fucking serious?) but this is a geek movie of high calibre. ure the Blair Witch Project had this idea before. But that movie didn't have a Giant fucking Monster destroying New York(and it was good)....Sinestro Corps War!

So, Omar, Marlo, Chris and Snoop don't like JJ is what you're saying?

You're a dipshit if you think JJ is not talented.

This reviewer is an idiot too, btw, so you're not alone. Cloverfield was an excellent movie. Fun, tense, fresh...not the second coming of Jesus but it's a movie what are you expecting? Yes, moments sound "written", that's because, gee, I don't know...IT WAS WRITTEN. If you want an hour and a half of unscripted handicam go watch youtube.

If a movie purports to be a "realistic" or "situational" depiction of an event, even something as silly as a giant monster fucking shit up, you need to make me believe in what the hell is happening. The characters were all giant retards, with Rob being the worst offender. I could see they were trying to do "realistic" dialogue as well but mostly it was just VERY annoying with characters repeating questions and other characters not answering those same questions and looking distracted whilst the camera swung around like a monkey on speed.

Strangely enough this movie actually did make me slightly nauseous, whereas the Bourne films did not so go figure. I don't know what everyone is talking about personally. I think the monster looked quite idiotic and also the CGI was pretty bad especially near the end. The worst crime of all, in my opinion, was the lack of tension. It was mostly annoying talking SUDDEN LOUD NOISE AND SHAKY CAM and then back to annoying talking.

Look, if I was going to make this movie I would have done it in two different ways.

1. Had it from the perspective of a squad of soldiers with cameras on their helmets and then cut between them. 90% of the shaky cam would be eliminated, you'd have some clearly defined action/tension and the story would actually go somewhere.

or

2. Have it from the perspective of a survivor watching the tape trying to piece together what happened. Make it some kind of fucked up mystery/sci-fi/horror flick. That would be way more interesting.

I give it 4/10