1-18-08 Project Cloverfield - Warning! Spoilers

Hey folks, Harry here - got the following brief review of CLOVERFIELD...

Just saw CLOVERFIELD in a small screening in NYC. IT WAS AWESOME!

I know - you want to know more. Join the fucking club! You also doubt the validity of the claim. Well, I checked with folks to see if it had indeed screened. It was at a Viacom in-house screening with unfinished visual fx.

Add to this - a quote that Moriarty heard one day whilst walking the picket lines from a famous type that had seen the film, but was not associated with it, that felt they had just made "STAR WARS". Now - personally - that's crazy Hyperbole... isn't it?

The film's budget is too small for it to be that amazing... right? But... what if? What if there's a payoff behind the mystery and the buzz. What if we're a month and a half away from a film that we'll all remember the promotion for - and remember when nobody knew what it was called... when the world was thinking H.P. Lovecraft and Voltron... and something called SLUSHO? What if, we're on magic time - getting ready for something... wonderful.... What if?

Here's two additional reviews we've received: -- The first of these two came from the alleged MARINE - the following reviewer wrote me back with a very detailed (regarding the screening, location, how he got in, etc... piece - but here's what he had to say about the review that I've removed...

hey harry

saw you put my review up, so i'm glad it didn't go to waste! that said, i wanted to let you know, that 2nd review, from the former marine or whatever, is 100% bogus. as incoherent as it is written, from what i was able to decipher, he definitely gets a lot of things wrong. most importantly, the protaganists are definitely not strangers, and the reason for the group moving in the direction they do once the attack is underway is explicitly stated by the leader of the group.

be well

and this:

hey harry

longtime reader, first time writer. i was at one of the Cloverfield screenings in NYC, and while the EFX and music weren't finished, i don't think the movie was that far off from being complete. anyway, i am a big Lost fan so JJ Abrams' involvement, coupled with the amazing viral marketing campaign they have used to promote the film, had me really fired up about seeing the film. just wanted to preface with that before sharing my thoughts, which i will keep as spoiler free as possible:

regarding the monster:
i don't know how much i want to give away b/c i think people are having a really good time hypothesizing about what the monster is, so let me just say that it's humongous, it's ugly, and you do see it in full view - no blair witch kind of thing going on here. SPOILER TAG i can also confirm the presence of smaller monsters (which look like the uglies from starship troopers kind of) / END SPOILER [put that in black on the website if you can]

regarding the story:
again, don't want to give much plot away, but there is a little of a backstory initially, but it doesn't take too long to get to the party scene from the trailer, and once the statue of liberty head comes rolling down laffeyette street [i think?], the movie is off and running, with NYC devolving into chaos as people avoid being caught in the path of whatever is destroying their city

regarding the movie itself:
the scares are of the "gotcha!" variety, but that is to be expected given the use of the handheld camera, which, by the way, is your POV the entire film, so those with easy motion sickness be forewarned. there are some pretty funny one liners delivered by our cameraman to offset some of the tension with levity. there are certain plot devices which require a large suspension of disbelief (esp in regards to cell phone usage), but then again, if i'm going to buy in to the fact that a giant monster is ransacking my hometown, who am i to draw any line?

overall i thought it was solid, definitely not great, and certainly not a genre redefinition. then again, my expectations were very high going in, so i might not be the best person to ask. my major critiques were:

1) it was somewhat predictable, and, as i stated before, the scares in the movie are less of the "creeping dread" variety and more of the "gotcha!" type.

2) again, i don't want to end the hypothesizing fun, but the monster isn't given much of a backstory or explanation. it just starts tearing NYC a new one one night.

that's all i got. no need to credit me on this one, just wanted to get a review out there that doesn't have everyone shouting PLANT!!1!"
(original AICN article)