The next person who makes a Godzilla comparison to the Cloverfield monster needs to go back and study up on their monsterology. Godzilla is a colossal, majestic animal, while the Parasite (Cloverfield's monster, what I call it, and all the other nerdy fanboys roaming forums late at night) is basically a giant praying mantis. The movie makes an awesome trailer, but so did Spider-Man 3, and we all see what happened with that. The problem I had with Cloverfield is that I went into the theater with sky high expectations and dreams beyond that of Godzilla. I wanted to see a big badass monster destroy a city, and I did, but only out of the corner of my eye.
You see, what it doesn't do well is give us a big popcorn action movie. Yes, you see the monster, but never clearly, even when it's out in the open bathed in daylight. And this hurts the film somewhat, for even after sitting through the whole whopping 70 minutes (see: 'sarcasm'), I still really couldn't draw a mental picture of this thing. So if you go into Cloverfield expecting a big budget monster smashing good time, you'll be disappointed, because unlike the poster-one of the most awesome posters ever made-it's not a movie like that.
What it does well is offer up a good story of survival and does a decent job of putting things in an interesting and frightening perspective. The scenes at the beginning of the Parasite's attack when Hud, our camera guy, is running in the streets with military guys firing at the monster is great. But that's also the problem, the monster is so neat, that we wish it would just take up the whole damn movie. It doesn't. In fact the monster is only in it for a little bit in the first half hour, and then the last ten minutes, with 45 minutes in the middle of crappy human drama that we could care less about. That’s nice and all, but when I go see a monster movie I want to see monsters. (Also, why were there spider things in this movie? I'm tired of watching spider things take over monster movies. It seems like they're in every movie and I think they need a break.) Back to the human drama. Yes, human-wise, Cloverfield gets pretty intense at points, even if Rob, the main character, seems to have no trouble sacrificing his closest friends to save some girl who's probably dead already (see: 'whipped'). Big heart, no brains.
Cloverfield offers up some truly cool moments, and the monster, though his appearance is short-lived and sketchy at best, is impressive to a degree, even if it seems to be the result of a Godzilla-Praying Mantis-Monkey sexual encounter. It's worth seeing, but not paying 10 bucks for (I paid $60 to see this movie including my siblings' tickets, my 'friend's' ticket, and food). This isn't a movie about story, in fact I feel like I've written this same story about ten times when I was in fifth grade. It's a style movie, a movie that knows that it has no story and is simply about art and special effects. That's probably the best way to describe Cloverfield. It's a piece of filmatic art that really fails to truly enthrall yet succeeds at creating interest. Though it isn't the large scale monster movie I was hoping-praying-for, it's definitely worth a rental and a tub of popcorn some lonely weekend.
Score: 6.5/10
