Cloverfield

A going-away party in Manhattan is interrupted when a mysterious, giant-sized monster launches an attack on New York City. With camcorder in hand, a small group of friends make their way out into the chaotic streets, scrambling to stay alive. Mike Vogel, Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, Michael Stahl-David, Odet Jasmin and T.J. Miller co-star in this action-thriller produced by J.J. Abrams, creator of the hit television series "Alias" and "Lost."

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» Reviewed by 42 people

You have to be kidding me, A+ to the marketing department for selling this junk. When you have to go to IMDB for clarification on the plot, excuse me, lack of plot, then its generous to give the movie a 1 star. Don't wast the 84 minutes, 20 of which had nothing to do with the "monster".
- HD 1295997

This is not a horror movie. It is a monster movie. The "scary" moments are on par with King Kong and the like. Normally I hate jittery cameras and was half expecting a hokey special effects, but I was pleasantly surprised.
- JEDIPUNK

This movie consists of a series of clichés stolen from better movies. Usually, when a movie is marketed as "by the maker(s) of X" where X is a hit production, that's a sign the movie is probably a dud. That was precisely the case here. J.J. Abrams name was plastered prominently on all advertisements. That was done to compensate for the movie's lack of substance.
- lemur

Seemed like a really really horrible trailer. 84 minutes is not how long this movie was. Maybe if there is a sequel they break the 1st person thing & explain any part of this story. Terror was not the word I was thinking as I was falling asleep.
- chrismartintx

I liked this movie, but then again the emphasis is on "liked". This movie was missing a lot in order for it to be great. Here are my opinions of what was missing. I felt as if I was being left out of the loop. I wasn't sure what was really going on. While this added to the suspense of the movie, it lost it's appeal when in the end I still had no clue about the real happenings. Basically I want to know the story behind this monster before the movie stops abruptly. For me there was no closure. Another love story. I am bothered at how every movie has to involve a love story as the main emphasis into the plot. So much more could be done here by lightening the love story up a bit within the plot. Overall it was a fun movie to watch. I really liked how the camera shots were done, as well as the general plot. However, in the end this movie was like seeing a breaking news headline on your TV and the electric goes out.
- tw3nty3ight

If not for the shaky camera, I would've watched more than the first half-hour. An innovatively designed movie, but not the best way to present it.
- pwg 1852450

Cloverfield was an experience. And I don't mean that in a "fnah-fnah, it wasn't a movie, it was an experience," way. I mean that the whole movie, characters and plot, were there to give you the experience of being caught up in a disaster beyond your control. The big monster and its conflict with the military wasn't Godzilla meets the Blair Witch. It was a natural disaster, a war fought in your hometown. Something bigger than you that doesn't care about you or your job or your loans or your relationship fears. The movie was about the experience of seeing everything you think is important rendered insignificant. Now, don't let me give you the impression that it was cerebral. It wasn't. It was visceral. It was scary and startling and harrowing, but also at times sweet and funny. It was a movie that made you feel. And if you're like me, the way it made you feel will make you think. The first-person perspective was brilliant. It really immerses you in the point of view of the characters - none of them particularly remarkable or brilliant. Just normal people. Seeing the events through their eyes left me feeling so much more empathy than a camera in the sky would have. And again, this all plays into the experience of the movie - you become more involved with the lives and conversations and emotions of the characters because you're in the middle of them, and this all helps to deliver the visceral experience of what transpires. For me, they hit every hope I cultivated about the movie as soon as I saw the previews. Harrowing, scary, and cataclysmic. This is a new favorite.
- BG 1711094

Not that great and way to predictable. Cloverfield is a little bit more than your typical monster movie. Rather than take the Godzilla route and have the creature has the main feature of the film, Cloverfield spent its time dealing with the people involved... and that's my main problem with this film... I disliked every character in this movie. None of them are particularly interesting, and if they all died by the end, I wouldn't have cared. The reason I rented this movie was because I wanted to see a giant (and mysterious) monster tear up New York. Sadly, what we have here is a predictable love story with a giant monster used simply as background; the beast in question had about 10 minutes of on-screen time. And while it certainly didn't make me sick (the smaller than a theater screen helped), I didn't care for the camera work. In fact, I found it annoying. Many times, something interesting would be occurring in the background but you couldn't see it because the camera would be lying on the ground or pointed at someone's feet. Cloverfield is an entertaining movie to watch at least once, but I can't recommend it more than that.
- Mr Awesome

Wow what a terrible movie, you will root for the characters to all die! If this is an American version of Godzilla then we are doomed, the silly POV film work might be fine for a 12 year old but beyond that it's really annoying. Stay away from this one unless you are really bored.
- ML 177095

Shallow, vapid Characters, a monster with a stalking problem (why must he always follow them?), and completely idiotic choices made by said vapid characters make this one of the most annoying movies of the year. The concept itself is fascinating, and the action is great, but all those good things are erased by the sheer stupidity and self involvement of the characters, and the Monster's idiotic ideas about how to destroy a city. If you have a suspension of disbelief switch, turn it up to 11, because this movie requires it to buy in to their stupid vapid conundrums. I hate this movie. Google Cloverfield Monster Map if you want to see how stupid the monster's path really is.
- Mordecai

This film had one of the best teaser trailers in years and built an instant cult following. As more information about the film was revealed, the critics started coming out of the woodwork, calling it another shaky-cam Blair Witch Project. I avoided this film in the theater because I had a very bad experience due to me easily getting motion sick. Fast forward to Cloverfield's DVD release I decided to give this film a chance. I enjoyed it. Yes, the camera was shaky at times and some scenes could have been cut in half (this film would have been a much better if it was under an hour). This is an interesting point of view on a Godzilla movie, what would the people on the ground experience and feel if they were being attacked by a giant monster. The confusion, the terror, lack of information, not seeing what exactly is attacking them. I highly recommend.
- zal 312975

This movie had me going back and forth but by the end i was happy with it. The Godzilla type creature was a little much but it made the story work and wasnt the focus of the movie. Overall an entertaining expieriance but if you get motion sickness would not recomend this movie.
- Rob22

Are you people kidding me? This movie sucks. You barely see the monster for maybe 30 seconds. The hand-held camera sh*t is just annoying.
- JT 601189

So the camera has a light, night vision, amazing battery life, but no steady shot?
- AL P.

After reading a lot of mediocre reviews and blogs about this movie, I was pleasantly surprised that it was as good as it was. I think the only thing that I really disliked was the lack of a backstory for what was happening with the monster, aside from a couple of minor hints. (The viral promotional campaign had a lot more hints on that, but I tend not to follow that sort of thing.) The effects were pretty good and the whiny gen-x'ers were not nearly as annoying as I thought they be (and Hud had some genuinely funny lines). It's basically just a revamped version of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, but at least it's better than the last version of that movie (the 1998 US attempt at Godzilla). All in all, it was a very nice giant monster movie. Don't try to make anything else out of it, and you'll probably enjoy it.
- Doctor Memory

I thought 'Cloverfield' had a good premise, but the shaky camera got on my nerves. I know I would've enjoyed this movie a lot more if the camera work were different. I feel that this movie was a waste of a rental. I would not recommend this film to anyone.
- spencer.

High concept, middling execution. Halfway through I felt like I was watching a video game. (If you've played Half-Life, you'll know what I'm talking about.) See the South Korean film _The Host_ for a better Godzilla homage.
- CC 533120

Fantastic monster flick. Reminiscent of "The Host" in that it is a monster movie where the real focus is on the people. You care about these folks. That said, there are still plenty of great scares. Cool special effects. Nice slow reveal for the monster. (You see more and more each time.) In the end though, the focus is on the people. (This is a good thing.) Warning: It is filmed all in hand-held camera style, so, if you are susceptible to motion sickness, please be warned. PS Stay through to the end of the credits and listen very carefully.
- Jack Bunny

What a waste of film actors and time. They should have just made another Godzilla movie. Another movie that got my attention when watching the trailer. Would have never thought the whole freaking movie was made on a hand healed camera. I was expecting them to put the camera down at any time….but never happened. All the running and movement of the camera made both my wife and I sick. People where vomiting in the theater and was just terrible. I was so upset I wanted my money back but of cores it didn’t happen. Don’t waste your money or even putting it in your Queue. I DO NOT RECOMMEND.
- SirMrJoe

I rather enjoyed this movie. It was filmed with the "Blair Witch Project" essence, but had some really cool effects in it. It was creepy enough to draw me into it, and it had some unique looking monsters in it. I originally thought this was another Godzilla rip but I think it makes a good addition to the "Monster Attacks New York" genre.
- Travalier

As others have noted there are two distinct groups of people : those who loved this film and those who hated it. I loved it. Why? Because it's the first monster movie told from the perspective of the on-the-ground civilians, instead of from the top. It accurately portrays that horrible "earth just fell from beneath you" feeling during a real disaster (think quake, hurricane, or attack) and it hints at scenes from a "regular" monster film also, but never quite shows them (or the really gross out stuff) - your imagination fills in the rest. be sure to watch the credits for what sounds like a soundtrack for a mainstream monster film that most people would have made, it was awesome.
- n-judah

There are no new story ideas. That's why we get the constant barrage of rehashes and remakes. But in Cloverfield, we get a new way of telling the classic "monster attacked New York" story. Instead of following the Will Smith or Tom Cruise characters, we're focusing in on the extras or background characters of a big story Smith or Cruise might star in. This was executed brilliantly. The conceit of the movie is that we are viewing a videotape, beginning to end, and on this tape is everything from normalcy at a friend's going away party to mass chaos with a monster attacking the city. This is told completely from the point of view of this one camera. The only cheat is that these events are being taped over a tape from a previous day. As a result, there are slight skips in the almost non-stop action where the previous events come through giving brief flashbacks and ultimately giving a fantastic ending to the piece. Do to the nature of what it is, I can see where some might not like it. The handheld aspect was at times difficult to deal with, but the shaky aspect kept the tension levels high by throwing the viewer off and not really allowing very good glimpses of the monsters.
- walrus

A contingent of frustrated fans of the excellent TV series "Lost" were constantly hounding the creators with demands of "less talk, more monster!" So the guys took advantage of their 5-month hiatus, and they BROUGHT THE MONSTER. Japan has produced almost 30 "Godzilla" movies, but they never thought to tell one like this, from a single first-person point-of-view. And the experiment paid off, because this is one of the most thrilling sensory theatrical experiences of the last few years! Imagine for a moment, if a creature of unknown origin (A remnant from our own ocean? An alien?) attacked our largest city, and someone captured the whole event on YouTube. It would be one of the most watched videos in the history of the internet. Cloverfield IS that video. For many people, the only thing scarier than the thought of dying is the thought of the final moments before that fate: Will it hurt? Will you run?... Go out fighting?...Or just hug your loved ones and close your eyes? This film grabs you by the throat and forces you to live out that nightmare several times throughout its running time. If that sounds like too much for you to handle, stay away. If you are susceptible to motion sickness, stay away (or take some Dramamine). Find the biggest, loudest theater in your town, go with someone you can grab onto, bring a flask of your finest liquor, and have a terrifying night at the movies!
- Topaz420 in CA

Am I the only one that found this movie to be only mildly entertaining? Don't get me wrong there is a lot of action but where is the plot.. Also this is pretty much a high budget rip off of Monster directed by Eric Forsberg. If you enjoyed this movie you should check out monster. I think they used the same tentacle! It’s pretty much the exact same movie but based in Tokyo, same hand-held camera shooting, same mad/bad squid thing... All in all it was entertaining to a point but I don’t think I will be watching it again and again like other action/monster movies in my collection.
- Partypeanut

Movie: Godzilla vs. Pretty young people. Style: Have funny dude in charge of camera and watch the people run around N.Y. This film was okay but most of the time I was closing my eyes b/c the shaky cam made me nauseous and gave me some powerful headaches. Do not watch if you can get sick easily. The acting was good. The idea from looking at it through the eyes of a group of people was a good idea. The story was written okay but the characters made some dumb decisions that really made you want to slap the stupidity out of them. The whole Godzilla thing was kind of dumb...it would have been better if it was like aliens taking over(a la War of the Worlds) and not just one monster. The initial confusion and terror seemed very real and accurate. I would recommend this film but only those who have a strong will.
- grayeyes043

Wow! Strange filming technique. I can see why people were getting sick on it. I really enjoyed it though. VERY interesting. I love the effects, the drama, the story it self. The actors are all unknown so it really made it a lot more believable. J.J Abrams is brilliant! Although we knew that already. Only problems I had with this film is the ending...wondering if there will be a second...maybe to explain something that are never truly answered. The aliens or Godzilla like creature just pops in from basically nowhere...so your going through the movie wondering well "what the heck is it DOING here anyway?!" Great, great job all around. A truly memorable film. One that I would recommend to anyone with a Strong stomach for rocky cameras.
- *~*Sullivans*~*

Oh My! What to say. I personally was mesmerized throughout the film. Hats off to Director J. J. Abrams for bringing us something entirely new and fresh. In this age of remakes and rehashing of old and likeable characters (aka Aliens Vs Predator 2). We have Cloverfield. I’m still totally unsure how they came up with the name, but the story is totally real-like. Give an amateur a camera, throw him and his friends into an unforgetable situation where perhaps even their lives are at stake, and here you have Cloverfield. The acting keeps you on the edge of your seat, the camera work even makes you pay more attention and enthralls you to keep watching to see what happens next. I watched the commentary and special features after the film and it gave a whole new meaning behind a great director for me. To be in a time where you have the computer age and special effects to add to your work, some have let it make their movie for them. J. J. used it as a tool to add to his vision of Cloverfield. Although now that Manhattan is no more I wonder … will we see Cloverfield somewhere else?
- JWnPooh

The story centers around a Godzilla-styled attack on New York City. It follows a group of characters who survive the initial attack during a party for their buddy who's leaving to Japan (providing a wink and nod). Like any horror movie it's a game of who will survive. The characters that did bite it sometimes surprised me (expect a zombie sequel) and sometimes didn't (uh-oh, sappy love story---you were warned). If I were watching a normal film, I think I wouldn't have been so thrown. And there lies the problem with "Cloverfield." Movies like this can't really satisfy because it's more about the experiment than the narrative (The audienced sucked teeth and booed at the end of the film, but there were screams and cheers during). Here, the experiment almost wins out on the narrative. That is until a few too many clichés overtake the film. It's the clichés that really hurt this particular style of film, because in a movie where we are put in the film, the characters do things that would only be suitable for movie characters
- TroyJ15

I really enjoyed this movie and have been meaning to see it again since I watched it in the theater. I think they show the monster just enough without giving too much or too little away, which could have ruined the movie for me if done differently.
- Danny McVey

Blair Witch Project meets The Host. I liked the humor and the excitement. It may not be the scariest monster movie, but it certainly was an entertaining one.
- GS Chicago

I started watching this movie with literally no idea what was about to happen (best way to watch movies, IMO). I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. The way they shot the movie with one camera really gave it the effect that you were watching what someone actually went through -- except the quality is much nicer. At some point during the film, I thought of Blair Witch Project and was just amazed at how much better they pulled this off! The glimpses of the monsters or things happening and *then* the camera is turned to capture the aftermath. It puts you right there with the actors. Every last detail makes it so realistic -- people stop to snap photos with their cell phones... c'mon, how often does a movie really depict people on a realistic basis such as that? It's great! Would've rated 5-stars if it wasn't for the abrupt ending.
- FireCoral

Cloverfield lives in a sort of purgatory between incredibly stupid and oddly interesting. The concept of the film is pretty engaging, and well pulled off – though there are some plausibility issues with how long someone would really hang onto the camera while in life threatening situations. But the cinematography is really pretty excellent. It takes the Blair Witch idea of characters with cameras to a new level, with some creative editing. It’s major issues are the “off the cuff” dialogue and acting is often a little too poor to be engaging, especially towards the beginning of the film. But Reeves pulls the concept off pretty well, by the end of the first act it sucks you in whether you like it or not and remains a pretty intense monster film throughout it’s rather short run time.
- Dlukenelson

From the mind of J.J. Abrams, the guy who created Alias and Lost. Godzilla meets Blair Witch Project. A monster movie all from a hand-held video camera. I was really hoping that I was really going to like. I didn't. the first twenty minutes is a bad MTV "reality" show. Then it picks up somewhat when it becomes a monster movie. It just seems too disjointed and the low-level acting really took away from the interesting movie that was trying to get out. "So good luck with that, and so we're going to be here, in New York, really safe and fine for you when you come back."
- Cleve1212

Thoroughly intense and mostly entertaining, this friends vs. monster movie leaves a lasting impression. If you don’t already know, the plot here revolves around a devastating monster attack on NYC that finds a group of people racing to save a trapped friend while one sporadically records the experience via handy cam. The plot device is simple but effectively allows the audience an up close view of the ruined city while maintaining a constant sense of danger. Filmed mostly from a first person view, the shaky style (think Blair Witch) may turn off some viewers, but for others, like myself, I found it added a sense of urgency. And while the story is interesting and the action fast-paced, I did find it annoying that certain questions (what is this monster, where is it from, why did it destroy the city, etc.) are never really answered. Despite these problems however, if you love big-budget monster flicks like I do, you’ll likely enjoy yourself with this one; 3.5 stars.
- Creeper

This was the monster movie I've been waiting for since the terrible 1998 Godzilla came out. Where the original Godzilla emerged from horrific events in Japan, the 98 version came out of the horrific minds of marketing execs. But in the wake of 9/11 the time is right time to have a monster come out of nowhere and destroy us and surprisingly the film was good. I was expecting a mediocre movie and ended watching a clever and realistic monster movie. We experience it all from one perspective, a guy who agreed to videotape goodbyes at a going away party. This means sometimes we barely see the action, sometimes we barely miss it, and sometimes we experience it first hand creating an uncanny reality. One of the conceits of the film is that they are recording on a used tape and so sometimes a few seconds of old footage pops up working perfectly to give us a breath and also a bit of lyricism. The actors in the film do a great job portraying thirty something neo-yuppies. Their characters annoyed me but I always believed them. The film also smartly follows the Jaws template. We don’t see the monster until well into the film and once we do it's only briefly. It's a daring move this day in age to have a big special effects extravaganza and not focus on the effects, but when the effects are used they blend seamlessly with reality. And the film also, maybe unintentionally, stumbles upon a scary fact of American life, our plastic infrastructure. In the aftermath of the attack people take refuge in malls and big stores illuminating our lack of anything concrete. That's it for us, stores, and we find comfort in consuming. Looking at the film strictly on an aesthetic level it's pretty experimental and exciting with jump cuts and intentional mistakes. One of the closing shots best sums up the movie. The camera is on the ground filming a person and the auto-focus bounces between the person, the grass, and the horizon creating an authentic scene, a poetic shot, and a feeling of doom.
- Paul Logan

Will you love "Cloverfield" as I did? That depends on whether you love the gimmick upon which the entire film rests. That gimmick is the existence of a miraculous unbreakable handicam, that seems to have an everlasting battery (even when you use the built-in flood and night vision features) and that, even more incredibly, its 85 minutes of footage shot intermittently over the course of one nightmarish night just happens to reveal a cohesive narrative that has unfolded in the course of the night that New York was destroyed. The film baldly references 9/11 a number of times; it is only because of recent history that we now associate collapsing buildings with suffocating clouds of dust swallowing whole city blocks, but that's clearly justified by thr impetus toward realism. Decapitated Liberty seemd a more purposeful metaphor. but whether it references the desecration of our shores by an enemy, or subsequent voluntary curtailment of freedom for security's sake is debatable. Without spoiling the ending, I can volunteer that it offers familiar and sound advice: "carpe diem."
- cwg 307492

Although we've seen disaster flicks before, we haven't seen one quite like this. While most center the attention on the actual alien invaders, here director Matt Reeves turns the camera around and focuses on the victims in the streets (reminiscent of post-9/11 Manhattan.) The gimmick is that we're seeing the destruction from "found" footage - that of a personal camcorder operated by a group of friends fleeing the carnage. The technique is an extremely jittery hand-held camera that sometimes becomes a bit nauseating, but successfully heightens the danger and hectic nature of the aftermath. Many will complain that there aren't enough wide sweeping shots of the creature(s), but it's important to remember that this one's not about the monster. It's about the poor humans and the pathetic things we do.
- Frank W

Not a big fan of "monster" movies, but this one was not too bad. There were elemnets that were interesting, but more that were annoying. The tension in this movie was very high and the pace was quick and flowed well. However, the camcorder shooting was very hard to follow many times throughout the film. I understand the reason behind using the camcorder, but it did make it hard to watch at times. The monster was seen only briefly except for one scene throught the movie. I felt we should have been given much more information as to where the monster came from and what the heck it was. I've had a string of movies lately that really had the opportunity to be great, but fell short of that... this is another one that missed the mark. 2.5 stars 7/05/08
- frgodbeyjr

I'm in the "really liked it" camp on CLOVERFIELD, probably because I don't suffer from motion sickness. This first-person take on a Godzilla-type monster movie was original and, I thought, very effective. Keep in mind that most good horror movies rarely have happy endings. If you queue this one thinking otherwise, you might be disappointed. The smaller "parasites" that fell off the biggun' were wonderful. An inspired idea. I felt more in-the-moment with this film than I have any other movie for a very long time. Well done, J.J., and looking forward to your take on Star Trek.
- Firewater

It's probably not for everyone. It's shaky cam and first person narrative. But I loved it. It's one of the best horror movies I've seen in a while. Very few jump out scares, for which I am eternally grateful. I will outline the plot below: A party in New York is broken up by an invasion of bizarre creatures. Some of them are skittering spiderlike insects that are a bit reminiscent of the monsters from Alien. But the best is a gigantic praying mantis like beast that destroys New York. The bad: 1. The typical horror movie cliche where the heroes head towards the danger instead of away from it. 2. The woman who runs in high heels and a skirt through the entire film. 3. Another woman who runs at breakneck speed after being impaled by rebar. The good: 1. The first 20 minutes allows you to get to know and care about the characters. 2. the first person narrative makes it feel like you might be there. 3. People walk around dazed and terrified for most of the movie. Like real people should. Not to mention, this movie is the perfect length for a horror movie. One hour, 24 minutes. Don't blink or you'll miss stuff. With the exception of the bad stuff, I loved this movie.
- psq 667824

Fun, fun, fun movie! Movie is actually only 74 minutes but it goes by even quicker than that since it is basically non-stop action right up until the final shot. I really liked the camera work, yeah it was a little "Blair Witch"-like in the first person shots but it seemed real to me. I don't know if I ever felt any real dread for the characters but I cared just enough about them and wanted to see the monsters (which they did show), so overall a good flick. It's short so you don't have to invest a lot of time to find out if you like it or not so I recommend you give it a shot. 5/08
- Skorpean

Cloverfield will undoubtedly be compared to the other shaky-cam "success" The Blair Witch Project. It should be clear, however, that 'The Project' had no story to build upon, whereas Cloverfield has a very clear plot. While I would knock a half star off for the shaky-cam footage, it is only due to the fact that it can and will give you a headache. I love that handheld cameras were used, but at some points, they are simply annoying and gimmicky. It's also better suited for a regular theater than a home theater, to really suck you in. Otherwise, this is an outstanding achievement in visual effects and thrilling moments from J.J. Abrams. (4.5 Stars)
- MCWHAMMER