Cloverfield mixes a new genre with an old one. The monster movie gets mixed with shaky camera effects a la The Blair Witch Project. How smart is that? Well, J.J. Abrams is possibly one of the smartest people in Hollywood right now so leave it to him to make this.
The plot is pretty cliche, but it still works. It is about a bunch of New York yuppies saying goodbye to a friend who is leaving for Japan at a surprise party. It is not long before a major explosion happens and the Statue of Liberty's head is thrown into their street. The yuppies race to get out of New York City before an unknown threat gets to them.
The film garnered tons of intrigue when it originally came out. It was originally realeased under the name 1-18-08 to lure movie goers in. The trailer steered clear of ever showing any clue of what the monster is. The film is still intriguing. The way Abrams inserts clues into "Lost", he also does with this. Watch carefully.
The shaky camera is something clever that completely works. Although it has become so gimmicky, it really is cool. Towards the end, the viewer discovers that the tape has been recorded over so we see the current action and previous things that happened. That is pretty smart, in my opinion.
Cloverfield is an odd, genuine and then again not so genuine monster movie. It is great to see that old movies are coming back to Hollywood--not in the form of a remake. There probably won't be another film like this for a while and it sure is a modern classic.
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