The marketing for Cloverfield is perhaps the best and most clever use of viral marketing that I have ever experienced. The first trailer appeared in front of Transformers in the Summer of 2007 without a title. The only notable names were J. J. Abrams and Bad Robot, well, for us film aficionados that know that Bad Robot is J. J. Abrams productions company. Only the date of release 1.18.08 was shown, which I thought that if that was name would be kinda cool. Nobody really knew what the film was about, except that a group of 20-somethings were having a go away party and suddenly, BOOM. The head of the statue of liberty flew through the air hitting the streets while everybody screamed in horror.
The marketing for Cloverfield was so secretive that it forced people to uncover minor details on the internet. A few days before the opening on critics screenings, they had to sign contracts of non-disclosure agreements.
This was a movie that has to be seen in theaters to be experienced with the audience.
So to the review...Cloverfield is the account of a group of young adults who planned a going away party for Rob who got a job in Japan as Vice President of some company. His friend Hud was tasked with documenting events and getting interviews for Rob on a HD camcorder. He had some girlfriend troubles and while he was getting advice from his brother, an explosion happened in the distance and then blackouts, more explosions, they try to survive the night, some do, some don't. Only glimpses of the monster were shown to us until about 5 minutes to the end when we get full views of the monster.
I call this movie an experiment that reminds me of The Blair Witch Project except it was made for $22,000 while Cloverfield's budget was $25 million. Also, we definitely know that Cloverfied is a fiction but Blair witch did not clearly appear as one as many thought it might have been real. Cloverfield was very entertaining with many scenes with high tension and excitement. There were a few funny parts with Hud...by the way I think his name was chosen from the definition HUD (Heads Up Display), probably because he carried the camcorder.
My problem with this movie was that even though I like hand held cameras, I don't like it when it's distracting and too shaky, like in certain sequences of the Bourne Ultimatum and this movie. Of course it made sense because when you are being chased by metallic spider like creatures and trying to get away from some giant monster, I wouldn't expect Hud to hold the camera steady and try not to fall over.
There's no back story as to how this monster came to life and how it got to New York. I don't know if this is a bad thing but it didn't seem to take anything away from the movie. Cloverfield is pretty short i length with a run length of just 75 minutes as compared with about 2 hours of other blockbusters. This makes sense because standard camcorder tapes have a capacity of 90 minutes.
There is no normal tri-part movie storyline with character developments however, it is very entertaining with cool special and visual effects.
I encourage everyone to see Cloverfield but I don't really have to because it just broke the record for highest January opening weekend ever with $41 million almost double its budget in just 3 days. The theater I went to see it was the most packed that I had ever seen. I was almost scared that it would be sold out.
J. J. Abrams is the master of mystery in my opinion. Just look at TV series: Alias, Lost, and movie Mission Impossible 3 which he directed. What the hell is the Rabbit's foot and what the f**k is going on in Lost?
There is a great talk that J. J. Abrams gave on TED Talks
