I'll try to keep it short and sweet too.
Cloverfield is really a love story with a monster added in for good measure. It's essentially about a guy who gets on an amazing race across Manhattan to save the girl he slept with, while a gigantic monster rampages in his path.
(Possible spoilers only if you don't want to know what the monster is.)
The monster turns out to be NOT the mighty Cthulhu but some generic close cousin of that adorable mutant tadpole in The Host. Only, this guy is much bigger, slower and less agile. And he's got other nasties hitching a ride on his body. The story is told through supposedly found footages from a handheld camera, that even has an anti-movie piracy stamp in the beginning. In the footages, you get shaky camerawork, which could easily have been an excuse for a lazy filmmaker working without a storyboard to get away with badly shot scenes and bad lighting. But I digress.
In said footages, you can see guy filming a sleeping girl, whom he's just had sex with, girl waking up, guy and girl doing lovey-dovey stuff, then some people preparing for a party, then explosions and chaos, then ... well, it goes on and on. There are not that many shots of the monster, so you'll find yourself squinting or moving your head to try and catch a glimpse of it. And all the time you hear people screaming, saying dramatic things like "Oh my God!" and "Did you see that?" and that old monster-movie gem, "It's alive!!!"
There's elements of The Host, Blair Witch, Godzilla, Starship Troopers (OK, I'm stretching it a bit here) .. in short, nothing you've never seen before. And that's not a good thing because the movie's marketing focused lock, stock and barrel on the Monster, the bleeding Monster. As such, they should have had a really mind-blowing and original creature. Instead, they have a love story.
A freaking love story.
Many things are left unanswered, so as to generate more speculation. Where did the monster come from? What are those smaller nasties? Why did that awful thing happen to people when they get bitten?
And what the hell is "Cloverfield"???
A field of clovers?
Good thing you guys are keeping the hype down.
I've read the reviews at AICN and I think I ran the risk of spoiling the movie for myself by over-anticipating it.
Still, I'm getting mighty curious!
I'm trying to temper my expectations too. That AICN review was waaay over the top - then again, it was AICN - part of their charm lies in their going completely gaga over things, I think.
Sorry, but what in the marketing focused on the monster? Seems like it focused on everything BUT the monster... I think there's a partial shot of a monster leg in one of the trailers...
Eh, he's just trying to push that supposedly success formula of Jaws, that the monster is not seen till the middle of the movie. But this one, the monster is not seen at all. I haven't watched it but I still do. I guess the strategy does work, plus the fact that ... wait JJ Abrams did not direct it. And isn't trying to save your lover during the apocalypse Shaun of the Deadish?
Yeah, it's kind of crazy how closely associated this project is with Abrams, even though he's not the director. Seems like most people are assuming it's his vision behind the film. Sucks for Matt Reeves.
If the movie sucks, that wouldn't suck for matt, he could just say he followed JJ :P
to me, it's like early Johnnie To films ... he's not credited as director but his stamp is all over those projects, so much so we call them Johnnie To films.
btw, the difference between Jaws and Cloverfield is that Spielberg had a great plot and great, colourful characters. so we had something to watch even when the shark wasn't around.
It didn't work for me; the characters were thinner than cardboard, and the whole setup before the monster attack was unbearable. The only thing that kept the movie going was the money shot that would show the beastie in this Kaiju porn. It just makes you realise what a masterpiece The host is.