Cloverfield: Review By TheStonedReviewer

Cloverfield: I just want to get my complaints out the way first so I don't get carried away, this is my type of film, sci-fi alien monster movies are and I quote 'where it's at'. But I was someone who sat through this desperately hoping to find out the following: (By the way spoiler alert)

1. How much destruction Manhattan was left with at the end of this film

2. Where the creature came from

3. What the Hammer down protocol was

4. What was that thing that fell into the ocean in the last scene

5. Finally, what the hell the creature is!

None of those were answered, which I suppose is clever in a way because it makes it more realistic, but I did finish the movie feeling pretty pissed off.

What I loved: Throughout this movie I was generally terrified, yes I know when you see it, it looks nothing more than a skinned hamster with testicles for eyes but for the first 40 minutes you actually do not have a clue what is going on, the found footage genre is by far the best way to make horror films.

Even with Cloverfield we know it never happened but we are still left at the end with the hairs standing up on the back of our necks because we are just so desperate to find out what happened to these characters. Why?

There is so much character development with these characters (which I feel is rare with horror films) even though this story is set over the short length of 7 hours we learn to understand the characters, we learn to understand what they are going though because we imagine what it would be like if we were in that situation, which isn't that hard due to the way its filmed, we feel like we are experiencing it with them.

The relationship between Rob and Beth works just so perfectly with the story, Rob and Beth have a fight at Rob's party then Beth goes back to her apartment instead of staying with Rob, after the creature starts attacking they find out Beth is trapped in her apartment so instead of getting in the helicopters and flying to safety they have to go back and rescue Rob's apparent true love (even though if the event never happened he would have gone to Japan the next day never to see her again) but no, no, no! He has to make peace with her.

Robs decision was basically a death sentence and from that point on without revealing the plot it just gets worse and worse, but it's like they say, love makes you do stupid things.

This film is by far the best monster movie I've ever seen, if you like these sort of films watch Cloverfield, the reason I'm reviewing it 2 years after it came out is because I was given it for Christmas but it just sat on my shelf slowly gathering dust until one day I finally put it on and it became number 4 on my all time greatest films, but it has really got everything you want to see in a monster movie...Spoiler alert!

All of New York gets destroyed by the end of the movie; not just a few famous landmarks and some up turned cars, all of it; it's all nuked in a final attempt to kill the creature which is pretty cool.

The camera man gets eaten, the one person who you are confident will stay safe throughout the movie gets ripped to shreds in the last 15 minutes, although slightly cheesy and very unrealistic, very cool.

Lastly the visuals are stunning, done on a 30 million budget (which is small, I know what has happened to the film industry?!) it looks equally as good if not better than any Roland Emmerich film.

A very cool, incredibly exciting, quite terrifying video file, property of the U.S. Department of Defense, we need a sequel to give us more answers! I give Cloverfield my all time favourite monster movie 5 stoned stars!