This does look creepy and hopefully it will be technically well done coz i aint been scared by a horror film in ages!

see if ppl still consider this a great work of film in say 6 months.

cloverfield is a one trick pony with a thin script that won't hold up long term. as for hating its characters, what people are trying to express and failing to do so, cloverfield's cast manages to come off as bores. and you couldn't care about one person in the cast after 80 minutes.

And as such, it scared the crap out of her.

A lie can work, sometimes.

That said, and I think this may be a pretty common non-American opinion, but I actually cared more about the people that weren't Hud (not that I can actually remember their names or anything). I'm really sick of the American Everyman being the main character. I'd rather have one of the "rich, pretty douchebags" as the cameraman than an annoying unfit loser who makes bad one-liners and can't talk to The Girl but is endearing because, hey, he's just like someone I know. In a found film, characters can't really exist, you need archetypes and stereotypes. Cloverfield seems to try to have it both ways - Hud seems like the Everyman, but he also seems like the uncertain guy who matures and Gets The Girl. The former is annoying, and the latter doesn't fit into a found film.

Although I agree with not putting much, or any, confidence in the characters' motivations, I did think the final scene was very poignant and elevated Rob and Beth's story.

Looking forward to seeing Paranormal ...

There were a few worthwhile moments: the very beginning of the attack had a visceral, realistic quality. The alley encounter between the monster and the ground troops, the tunnel sequence, and the overhead bombing shot were all done well. (Believe it or not, I enjoyed the opening party scenes more than anything else.) Yet NONE of these moments had a real sense of dread or danger. In fact, the hotel sequence in NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN was more frightening than the entirety of CLOVERFIELD.

It may also be worth noting that during the screening, quite a few people were laughing throughout the last 5-10 minutes. (Considering what was happening onscreen, I'm not sure Hud's zingers were supposed to be all that funny.) The final monster reveal drew some huge laughs which quickly turned to audible groans as the film ended. Make of that what you will.

And for the record, I never cared for any of the viral-marketing jive or the rumored hidden messages, etc. I don't care that a meteor supposedly streaks across the sky in the final shot (looked for it, didn't see it). And I don't care that Rob either says, "What do we do now?" or "It's still alive." after the credits roll. I just don't care. So much bullshit got stirred up before this film's release that none of this is capable of making me enjoy it any more than I did.

And Moriarty, this review is really late...

;^)

I have been reading some of the complaints about this movie, and I think I have come up with a version of Cloverfield they could enjoy, possibly in 10 years when it is remade. Naturally, it would have to be directed by a japanese or korean director that is virturally unknown among mainstream american audiences.

The movie would start off with a camera panning around a dingy little shithole of an apartment, cluttered with dirty dishes, grubby laundry, and countless 80's action figures in original packaging that line every shelf. The cameraman sneaks into an adjoining room, where a fat guy in a stained wifebeater is passed out on a bed, dog eared copies of High Society strewn all over his G1 Transformers collectible bedspread as he snores. The cameraman sneaks closer, and giggling, he sticks his ass up to the snoring guy's face and blasts him awake with a resonant fart. They scuffle around for a second then the cameraman says, "Get ready, you fat piece of shit, I'm not going to miss out on my copy of Halo 3 on account of your lazy ass! Now make sure you have your mom's credit card, I'll bring the food and the chairs, we'll get a good spot in the line. Don't forget the Magic cards, dick!"

Then there's a bunch of jump cuts as they take the train across town to the Best Buy, mostly snippets of dialogue of them complaining about popular movies and games.

Then it cuts to a different scene a few weeks later, a bunch of baggy clothed nerds sitting around a basement, all focused intently on a TV screen showing some FPS multiplayer game, as death metal plays softly in the background. There is little conversation as they play, everyone is cheering on the main nerd (Rob) to unlock some ridiculously hard achievement. Suddenly, there's a terrible roar and a loud explosion, and everyone reacts in horror as the lights flicker, but then give audible sighs of relief to see that the power has not gone out and the X-Box didn't reset itself. The cameraman, Duh, asks "What was that?" but nobody seems concerned, still focused on the TV. "Probably just another garbage truck hit the building. Just keep filming, he's about to do it." Then the power goes out for real, and everyone starts swearing angrily, but nobody gets off the couch.

Rob and Duh and a few others try to go find the superintendent, but when they get to the bottom floor, they find everyone in the streets gathered around the statue of liberty's severed head. Duh pans the camera around, and while everyone else's back is conveniently turned, he catches a full body shot of a giant monster standing next to the Empire State building to show it's exact scale, and he yells for everyone to look, but they turn around too late and miss it.

Everyone starts arguing about the situation, some people saying it can't possibly be the real statue of liberty because that could never happen. Duh mentions that he got the monster on tape, and it cuts back to the nerds on a train again for a second, then when it cuts back everyone is arguing. Duh swears it's clearly a giant lion, but others seem to think it's Cthulhu. One guy keeps screaming about Voltron coming to save us.

As everyone speculates about the monster and where it's headed, the camera pans over to Rob, who has decided he's going back to his mom's apartment. Duh assumes he's going to save his mom, but it becomes clear he's going to rescue his priceless DVD collection and his X-Box with all his saved information on it. But Duh is insistant on not leaving the scene until he can ensure that the video footage he's shooting will be easily watchable, and demands that they look for a steadicam. Rob, however, is a closet Dawson's Creek fan and, remembering an episode, he pulls a disabled guy out of his wheelchair and proceeds to push Duh around in it, providing a smooth, clear shot of their journey through the streets.

They make their way through the city, and Rob gets a call on his cell phone from his crying mother, who is paralyzed from fear and trying to fend off alien lion cubs that are trying to break down her door. "Mom, I don't have time for your bullshit right now, just tell me one thing, is everything in my room still OK?" Then the monster shows up again and eats some more people, and our protagonists run away, angrily bickering about the proper classification of the monster and where it originates from.

They escape to the subway, and attempt to travel through the tunnels to reach Rob's mom's apartment, but they are attacked by little tentacle faced lion cubs, who bite one of Rob's friends making him break down crying like a little bitch. Then as they exit the tunnels, they are taken into custody by the military, who bring them to a triage center. Rob takes one of the commanding officers aside and demands to know what is going on, and the officer lights a cigarette and launches into a detailed flashback exposition of the previous 3 years of outer space research and everything that has led to the monster showing up and destroying the city. Then he stubs out his cigarette and fixes his steely eyes on each one of them. "Even though we know exactly what it is and where it came from, it's still winning. OK, WE'RE MOVING OUT! Lock and load, gentlemen, tag em and bag em, we need to hit it hard and fast, I want short controlled bursts! Perhaps today is a good day to die!" Before they leave, however, the military officer takes Rob aside and hands him a huge automatic rifle with lots of ammo. "You're gonna need this. Now get the hell outta here before I change my mind!"

So Rob and his buddies grab Duh in his wheelchair and roll out towards Rob's mom's apartment, with plenty of gratuitous FPS scenes of Rob blasting of ornery tentacled lion cubs encountered along the way. They arrive to find the apartment building all smashed up, but Rob lives on the ground floor so they just break a window and go inside, where they find Rob's mom gruesomely torn apart on the floor, but miraculously the DVD collection and X-box have survived intact. Rob cries, however, to see his mint-in-box Star Trek figures have been destroyed, but his friends (just Duh and some random fat girl, at this point) group hug him until he calls them queers, and then it's kinda awkward for a second.

So they load up and head back to the makeshift military camp, only to find it smashed in the center of a giant lion-esque footprint. But they find a working walkie-talkie on the ground and manage to hear that there is a helicopter waiting down the street to evacuate survivors. They show up to see the monster fighting the military, and the scene lasts for a good 40 minutes, with clear in-focus shots of the monster being attacked by every manner of modern military hardware.

Then they get on a helicopter that transports them approximately 50 feet before it crashes. Rob and the fat girl scramble from the wreckage as the monster looms into view, but Duh refuses to comprimise the integrity of his footage by moving the camera around in a jerky attempt to escape, and is gobbled up and chewed thoroughly. The camera then falls to the ground and is picked up by Rob (who is still sifting through the wreckage for his DVD's.)

The crackling radio in the crashed helicopter alerts them to the fact that Voltron has been called in, and will be leveling the city within minutes in an attempt to stop the monster. Rob and the fat girl escape to another tunnel, where Rob gets all emotional, reading the summaries of his favorite movies from the DVD covers to the barely conscious fat girl. He starts sobbing when he realizes that the situation he is in now is just a badly ripped-off version of the Blair Witch project, a movie he hated in theaters for "pandering" to the mainstream. Then he hears the familiar approach of Voltron about to impact the city, and turns to his fat female companion as the tunnel begins to shake apart. "LOOK AT ME! I'VE NEVER BEEN WITH A GIRL BEFORE! CAN I TOUCH YOUR BOOBS? I SAID, CAN I TOU--"

And then it cuts to black for a second, and then back to the two nerds on the train, victoriously holding their copies of Halo 3. "Today was better than chocolate covered pussy juice!" And off in the distance, you hear a lion roar.

And everybody that criticizes this movie as 'unrealistic' because Rob tries to save Beth is revealing to the world that they are far, far, worse than the average person.

Drew, you got pics?

2) Lives near theater named Winnetka Shibox 500

Did your act get you laid?

Just askin. Ain't hatin on ya.

Have we really been coming here that long? Damn!

Anyway, thanks for that "improved" Cloverfield. It was an excellent bit of satire. Good to see the ol' wit is still bubbling inside you.

Maybe spoilers here. I think this was a prequel to the real monster flick. JJ and company have been known to set things up...not to tell a complete story. If you stayed past the credits like I did, you still might not know what those words are. But those words do lend themsleves to this idea.

So let's say I'm right. Next movie begins with the projector being turned off, the people (probably military/govt officials) in the meeting/viewing deciding what to do, and we get the "Godzilla/gargantuan" type movie we've a;ways wanted. Sounds to me like JJ to the Nth degree. All he has to do is show a healthy profit from this "low budget" effort and next time it's bigger than life.

For me, in actuality, their ho-hum presence scared me more. Why? Because the film made me feel helpless, and with this handful of characters, I got the heartrending feeling that if a large-scale disaster struck me in any sort of metropolitan city, my life, my stories, my memories would be worth zilch in the overall scheme of things. This movie terrified me, that my life isn't as important as I think it is, that my life really will go out with a whimper. That's what's terrifying to me.

Like somebody said about "No Country," how after the final shot there should have been a title that says "FAIL!" I feel that way about "Cloverfield." Nothing the characters could have been or could have done would have made one lick of difference in the grand scheme of things. Instead of something like ID4 or War of the Worlds, the universe does not revolve around the characters just for narrative's sake.

I do not expect people to agree with me, but that's okay. I just wanted to express why this movie shook me to the core. It's the most nihilistic thing in years, and it made me ill.

But Strabo, I think "Lost" belongs in that category, too. Well, to each his own.

The Loch Ness-whale-crab-dragon-monster didn't look that great either.

And the damn shaky cam did not sit well with my super-buttered popcorn and Goober snackfest. I'm human. I can only take so much!

On Heroes, Malcolm McDowell, an evil genius, concocts a disaster (through mutants) to take out New York in order to save humanity from itself.

In Cloverfield, a deep-sea monster terrorizes New York. Nothing points to it being created by man.

...

Watchmen was not the first to put a bunch of scientists on an island. This is a comic staple, no?

I agree with you about "Incredibles," though, but it definitely doesn't bother me.