Cloverfield (2008)

Old movie but I just seen it now, I wanted to see it for a while now. I really liked it, no story just looking, no thinking and action, mystery. its a stupid end but I don't know how they could have let it end otherwise.

I've not seen it, but I've heard mixed things. I watched Gojira/Godzilla from 1954 the other day, so I'm a monster movie mood.

Also, I should add, Godzilla is king of the monsters, and will beat the stuffing out of any other large monster!

Originally Posted by Turtle Hammer

Also, I should add, Godzilla is king of the monsters, and will beat the stuffing out of any other large monster!

Except for Mothra...

Anyway, I thought Cloverfield was an absolute waste: they had an excellent (or at least interesting) premise/idea that they choked to death with the new filming.

I personally think it would have been much better if they used some monster that we--the audience--actually know (like Godzilla, for example) instead of that monster they showed. It had too much going on, what with the little monsters popping out of it that could bite people and make them explode.

Something that has all that going on should really have been explained more. But something more simple, like Godzilla, would have made a very interesting and entertaining movie just as it was, and it could have had the whole romance/sentimental part fit more well, too.

I hated it. It could have been written and directed better by a 12 year old.

Seriously, there's just no emotion in anything they say and it seems like everyone in it has mental problems.

For example they're evacuating everyone from New York and one of their group says he wants to go back and get some person he knows (). He just says he "has to do it" even though she's probably got out, and they don't scream don't go or anything, one of them says "don't do it man" and "ok man". But the guy who says "ok man" cannot say the word "man" without looking mentally retarded.

I blame the director and writer.

It's kinda hard to explain but watch it, everything everyone says in that movie is just wrong.

I went into the movie wanting to hate it but thought it was pretty good at the end. Though it was kind of lame that the monster was being constantly blasted by all sorts of weaponry and never even had a burnmark on it. Reading into the plot more I was surprised to find out that the monster was an infant and was basically freaking out in its new surroundings. Would anyone have any interest in seeing a sequel where it grows up? Considering it lived of course. A lot of people were speculating on a possible sequel where the events are followed from another groups perspective, apparently during the bridge scene someone can be seen holding a camera.

Eh, I don't think anything will happen though, Super 8 is set to come out next year. So Abrams is plenty busy.

I loved it. Always wanted to see a movie from that perspective and this movie delivered it A class to me.

Originally Posted by irelandeb

I hated it. It could have been written and directed better by a 12 year old.

Seriously, there's just no emotion in anything they say and it seems like everyone in it has mental problems.

For example they're evacuating everyone from New York and one of their group says he wants to go back and get some person he knows (). He just says he "has to do it" even though she's probably got out, and they don't scream don't go or anything, one of them says "don't do it man" and "ok man". But the guy who says "ok man" cannot say the word "man" without looking mentally retarded.

I blame the director and writer.

It's kinda hard to explain but watch it, everything everyone says in that movie is just wrong.

i agree but i didnt watch it expecting an oscar nom. in the end, i was entertained.

The shaky camera made me nauseas, but other than that I thought it was alright.

Cloverfield is a great movie. Very entertaining.

I was expecting to hate it, mainly due to the handheld camera theme of it, but watching it I think the Handheld camera perspective worked really well for it, didn't like those liitle skuttle bug things that made people explode lol

It was alright. I liked it better than most monster movies.

And when they were talking about the flaming homeless dude in the subway I almost died laughing.

I thought it was alright, it was certainly an interesting take on the whole giant monster vs NYC theme...

To address Irelandeb's comments:

You're complaining about the acting? What did you expect? Performances that Anthony Hopkins couldn't hold a light to? Get real. The point of the movie was to make it seem as realistic as possible from the perspective of everyday people. One thing I think MANY people forget in regards to film is that normal, every day people don't actually act like what we see in movies...the next time you're hanging out with your friends or conversing with someone pay attention to how they say things, their body language, etc and tell me that you'd give them an Academy Award if you put it on film...b/c if you say no then you're essentially saying that a real life person cannot replicate real life emotions, language, etc

Think about it. Think about those conversations and what not you used to have with your friends in high school or college...how absolutely stupid they could be, then imagine if you took that conversation word for word and threw it into a film...it would be the worst performance in film EVER.

he wants to go back and get some person he knows ()

Obviously the character was 100% in love with the other. Have you ever really loved another person...it may sound corny and unrealistic but as someone who's felt that way at least ONCE so far in life I can tell you that people will actually do incredibly stupid and dangerous things for people they love - especially in a life or death situation.

^The problem with that is that by Godzilla is a joke...Abrams was going for something more "serious" here.

used some monster that we--the audience--actually know

But that doesn't exactly fit with the style the film was going for. The point of even shooting the film from the perspective of those random people via video camera was to communicate the feeling of panic that derives from having NO IDEA what's going on during some gigantic catastrophe.

Originally Posted by VOP2288

^The problem with that is that by Godzilla is a joke...Abrams was going for something more "serious" here.

But that doesn't exactly fit with the style the film was going for. The point of even shooting the film from the perspective of those random people via video camera was to communicate the feeling of panic that derives from having NO IDEA what's going on during some gigantic catastrophe.

That is an excellent point, but there was just so much going on with that monster that a little more explanation other than running around with yet another crazy unknown ability thrown at you would have been nice.

If it was just big and unstoppable that would have made a good movie, but the whole babies thing where they oozed out of its skin was bizarre, and then it just got over the top when anyone bitten or attacked by them exploded.

But even then it wasn't much of a problem for me... what really made me annoyed was how it just ended there, with that one video from that one person. There could have been even just a ten minute "news clip" or something added as a subsidiary "testimonial document" to finish the "evidense" that was the movie itself.

By the whole format the bizarrely mutated/experiment monster does sort of work, but only when there's closure of some kind. The intent was to make a film that gives the audience the "in the shoes, on the pavement" feel of the whole thing, which it did do pretty well (the whole scene when the girl was found impaled by the structural wiring and then, despite having a two inch whole through her body, was able to run and escape all of that, was taking that a little far, though...) but there was absolutely no closure, not even some lame scrolling text saying the monster had been proven, by the testimony included therein, to have been an escaped military experiment gone horribly wrong.

There had to have been survivors, the whole movie itself was supposedly archival evidence afterall. How did people survive? What person found the video tape in the camcorder to be brought anywhere as archival evidense in the first place?

We never even find out where the name "Cloverfield" originates from... I'm not asking for a blatant in-the-the-video-title-statment "a clear and present danger" scenario, but some explanation would have been nice.

Originally Posted by CescPistols

Put a spoiler if anyone hasn't watched it and cares.

maybe I should have done that too...
Nah!

Originally Posted by CescPistols

But really if someone said I'm going to go back and get someone and then ran off in the direction of the monster, I would just leave him to his own devices, not follow him into a likely death.(That's just me though, what a bastard I am )

Like VOP already pointed out, though, the "main character" so to speak was really in love with her, and I don't think you'd really just run away and leave anyone there not knowing what had happened to them, either. For one thing, you'd be in shock in that situation, so if you could even get out your front door you'd probably grab onto the one idea you could muster, which that that case was "find this girl" and for another thing, there really was so much going on that you wouldn't even know where to run to to get away from the monster.

Truthfully running to get her was the most sane thing that they had in the movie, it was just that--sad and bad as it to point out--she shouldn't have even been alive at all from the get go, she'd have lost so much blood in thirty seconds from a wound like that that they wouldn't have been able to get her down the stairs.

Originally Posted by Bokks

she'd have lost so much blood in thirty seconds from a wound like that that they wouldn't have been able to get her down the stairs.

Forgot that bit. Can't remember if she got that rusty pole in the shoulder or the stomach.

It was an interesting premise. The first 20 m inutes of the movie had a plot that I didn't really care about;

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

'OMG did you know he had sex with her!'

Put a spoiler if anyone hasn't watched it and cares. But really if someone said I'm going to go back and get someone and then ran off in the direction of the monster, I would just leave him to his own devices, not follow him into a likely death.(That's just me though, what a bastard I am ) The characters do wooden acting better than Keanu Reeves. Somehow though I still enjoyed it, no idea why. Better than watching Transformers I guess or some crap parody movie. I suppose it was because of expectations, I never went in expecting to see some breathtaking display of acting skill or a complex plot.

The most.... I mean the only likable character in this movie is the monster. If everyone had died in the first scene, and the camera been picked up by someone who wasn't a complete I might have found the movie tolerable, instead of infuriating. Rifftrax gave it a good treatment though.

It had Lizzy Caplan, so all's good in my book.

I kinda liked the experimental camerawork but the movie was dull.

but the whole babies thing where they oozed out of its skin was bizarre

If I recall correctly I think I read somewhere that those things were actually a totally different species that had a symbiotic relationship with the larger monster.

but there was absolutely no closure, not even some lame scrolling text saying the monster had been proven, by the testimony included therein, to have been an escaped military experiment gone horribly wrong.

But it wasn't an experiment...there is very very little information known about the creature itself. I think the only thing we really do know about it's origin is that supposedly it's been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for an extremely long time hibernating and if I remember the object that is seen falling into the water at the end of the film (during the video of Coney Island) is a satellite that then awakens it and sets the whole film in motion.

Overall Bokks you're demanding too many answers. Clearly Abrams wanted to leave a lot of questions in this film to further give the audience that feeling of panic and confusion, the lack of depth and sufficient background info and details was not the product of the filmmaker's laziness but rather a particular mechanic to make the film that much more "real" and interesting.