Have you ever walked into a film thinking one thing and coming out of the film thinking an entire different thing? If you have then you will understand the problem that I had with this film.

I kept watching the previews and with each preview, one thought kept coming into my mind over and over again. I kept thinking "Blair Witch Godzilla" and if this was the case, why should I even waste my time with this?

For my long time readers, If you remember an earlier review i did of the The Host I stated my love of the "Monster Film Genera" I really can not explain it but I just like a decent film that tells about a Monster destroying Tokyo or, as in this case, New York City.

So for my love of the monster movie, I decided to see if the film was worth the hype. I must now state that yes the film is worth the hype.

NOW THE REST OF THE REVIEW WILL BE A HUGE SPOILER ALERT, SO IF YOU DO NOT THE FILM RUINED THEN PLEASE STOP AND SEE THE FILM, WHILE IT PLAYS IN KOREA.

While I was watching the film, It felt like I was at ground-zero of this event. The shakiness of the camera, the power on and off the actual over tapping that occurred from a previous session. It seemed to make it into a real-time look at the end of New York City.

I purposely did not read or search any of the websites that were set up to tell the movie viewer, the entire story of how the monster can into being and why it attacked.
If you want a real good look at this film then please check out the FAQ from IMDB. It will answer a lot of the questions that the filmed brought up.

Now what was nice was that at the beginning of the film it showed that this tape was the property of the US Government and was recovered from US-477, The site formally known as Central Park in NYC. It made it look so official. (Now a warning here, the film was shot to look like it was being filmed with a hand held camera, so their is a lot of shaking and movement to the camera and the huge screen definitely shows it. Some viewers of the movie have shown signs of becoming very sick, due to this.

The plot of the story is very simple, you see a boy (Rob) and a girl (Beth), on the morning after. Then you see the film break to a party in which, Rob, the hero of this film, is having a good-bye party. He has a new job and he is leaving for Japan the next day. You are then introduced to the other players in the film (His brother, Jason, Lilly, Jason's girlfriend, HUD, Rob's best friend and Marlena, a girl that HUD really likes)

The party starts to go bad after Beth and Rob have a huge argument. The you see the friends try and help him, then you next hear a loud noise, it feels like an earthquake has hit NYC. You see people go to the top of the roof and then you see explosions and fire and people screaming that war has been declared.

Then you are slowly shown the monster and the monster is destroying the US Army and NYC. After that, its the typical monster move. The monster destroyers the city, kills people and to make matters worse, other smaller monsters are living on the big one and then they start to attack the city also.

The film revolves around Rob, receiving a call from Beth and she is trapped in her house and Rob goes through hell to try and save her. Now please check out the FAQ to see how the film ends and what happens near the end of the credits.

What I really liked about the film was how, when you did a little research with the websites, the film works and you no longer believe that you are watching the film but you are trying to get the heck out of Ground-Zero NYC.

To be honest, there could be a part 2 to this movie, that why the end of the credits trick worked for me. I also loved the last 20 seconds of the film, where you see that something has fallen into the ocean. It does make you wonder, "What did I just see?". I was laughing at the ending credits music. It sure sounded a lot like the Godzilla theme.

I saw the film at a digital screen and it was so much better that film could have ever have done for it. The digital theater showed the flaws of shooting with a hand held camera more and the sounds were made louder and more scarier than the film could have ever shown. You do get a good look at the monster. I will leave it up to you, the viewer, if you believe what you see or not.

In conclusion, we have our first big hit of 2008 and its name is "Cloverfield" Please see it when you can.


Opens in Korea. 24 January 2008

How I saw it. CGV Digital Theater.

Opening Weekend in USA $46,146,546 Jan 18 - 21 2008 weekend.

IMDB LINK. Cloverfield