Just saw it tonight. My biggest problem with it was that it was boring. I like monster movies, I like thrillers, I like big explosions – but I didn’t like this. I wanted all of the principals dead within ten minutes of meeting them. I hated them utterly and I prayed for their rapid, painful death.
My other big problem is that I got so nauseated by the video that I could hardly stand it. I have never had any motion sickness – not from the cruise ships, not from the little tiny fishing charter boats, not from flying, not from motion simulator thrill rides, not from The Blair Witch Project, never – but I was so sick to my stomach that I fled the theater the second the credits started. I had to go sit quietly in a bathroom stall to regroup. I didn’t actually throw up, but it was close.
I feel that it could have been a much better movie had it been filmed in a more traditional manner. I didn’t at all mind not having an explanation for the monster’s attack, but I did mind the camera work. I’m not against that sort of effect in general – I think it adds a great deal to Battlestar Galactica, Saving Private Ryan, and others, but not for 94 minutes. It was just too much.
They did a really good job with locations and correct placement of landmarks. But, you’re right about the Spring St station on the 6. It looks nothing like that – it’s a two side platform affair with four tracks (the 4 / 5 run express down the middle) and a unused trackway in the very center. Also, the Spring mosaic on the wall looked wrong to me.
I assume that the production team could not get clearance to shut down the station for filming, so they had to make do with either another station (and this didn’t feel like a real station to me) or with a constructed set (my vote).
I’m not sure that it matters whether anyone likes or dislikes the characters. We aren’t supposed to identify with them, really; they were just some kids who had a camera with them and documented what they saw. But we know they’re goners. None of them will survive, so there’s no-one to “root” for, in the traditional sense. We are meant, perhaps, to feel empathy, rather than sympathy, for these poor schmoes. Or, perhaps, just to feel like it sucks to be them. The movie is pretty nihilistic, after all: the monster wins (so far as we know), the “stars” die (so far as we know), and there is no happy ending. Because of the conceit of the film as found footage, we don’t even know the true ending, or the ultimate fate of the monster.
The “point” , if there is one, I think, is more to get the feel for the chaos and fear that might surround an event like this. The camera work is an integral part of the chaos aspect. We know only what the camera sees; we have no outside information beyond what the cameraman is told. And really, that’s about the only way to make a monster movie even a little scary.
I just saw it. I thought it was pretty good, but not great. The “Blair Witch meets Godzilla” conceit was pretty cool and made the movie scary, something few giant monster movies are. The vacuous pretty people didn’t bother me at all. I liked the idea of callow people who only a few minutes earlier were engaged in mundane relationship drama suddenly being tossed into a terrible situation no human has ever experienced, though I think the dialog was a little too flip at times, especially in the tunnel. What I didn’t like, and don’t like in horror movies is the character who is about to do something completely usafe, and won’t talk to or listen to the voices of reason around him.
I was also bugged by the monster, which seemed flesh and blood, surviving a B2’s worth of HE dropped directly on top of it. But what’re you gonna do? And what did it have against New York? Was it the pimps and Chuds? Can’t we all get along?
I’m hoping there’ll be something coming out which has some exposition about what the monster is. Maybe a website or some bonus features on the DVD.
This post seems pretty critical, so I will say again that I liked the movie. The monster was pretty freaky, and I’m glad I saw the movie without knowing what it looked like. Also the handheld camera didn’t bother me at all.
I am too lazy to look it up, but wasn’t the whole film shot on a Hollywood backlot? As far as I know, no actual NYC locations were filmed for the movie, so if they had to build/CG everything anyway, why not build/CG a more accurate Spring Street station? That said, they probably wanted a single-track and a door and other requirements for the scene, so I have no problem with the artistic license. Oddly enough what really bothered me was the pillars! Every subway station I can think of has those I-beams, and this had big round concrete columns. Maybe it was a structural thing for the set they were using, but that - and the free-standing metal map display - poked at the nit-pick part of my brain.
I think a better way to release this movie would be to film 3-4 different eyewitness accounts that as a whole paint a semi-complete picture of the events. Then the movie distributor could randomly send out the different accounts as the “completed film” to different cinemas, so that each singular moviegoer only has a portion of the story when they first see the movie. Through disucssions like this the audience would discover that each set of moviegoers saw something different and would try to piece the entire story together. So, rather than film and release a sequel, film a few different versions and release them randomly into the wild at the same time and let all hell break loose.
Just to clarify, I believe Cloverfield is the code name for the monster, specifically. At the beginning of the movie the it is intelligence “designate cloverfield” that infers that the creature’s name was cloverfield, and is an ongoing problem, rather than the code name of that operation. The tape was probably found by the Army and I believe this edited Intelligence copy was compiled by Army Intel.
Finally saw it, Excellent!
I believe the creature is, in fact, from the Lovecraft Pantheon. That would go a long way toward explaining its seeming imperviousness.
And I just got back from seeing Michael Clayton, which also gets it right. There’s a scene where you see an explosion in the distance, out of focus, then the camera focuses on it the same time you hear the sound, delayed by distance.
It also gives a better reason for the utter stupidity of going back for Beth. She calls, she sounds like she’s dying, her apartment is even closer to the giant monster and leaning against another building. And at no point does Jason decide to turn back.
At least Lily probably made it out alive.
I have to say I like the concept. It focused on the human drama instead of the ‘oh shit how do we kill this thing’ bit. I just wish I’d known there’d be that many things jumping out of nowhere before going to see it, I was starting to feel faint by the end of it.
My husband is convinced the monster is a giant fleshbeast from WoW.
You mean Rob. He had given up on Beth. He told Jason and Hud as much when the followed him out on the fire escape. They convinced him that he needed to go after her–that’s when the first tremor hit.
I saw it for the first time 2 days ago, on a very full stomach. I’d had a large pasta meal just prior to it, and hurried to get there in time. I just got there in time to catch the last preview, so I was in kind of an anxious state.
I have got to tell you, after about 10 minutes into the movie, I started to feel very nauseous and sick. I started to wonder if the Italian restaurant staff had placed something “special” in my food to cause me to get sick. I have NEVER gotten sick watching a movie ever, even during the Bourne series, and Blair Witch.
Half way through the movie, I had to leave and go to the bathroom. I missed about 10 minutes of it (the movie).
It was a good movie, but the shaky cam was just too much.
My question is if I go to see it again, will I experience the same reaction? Should I take Dramamine prior?
I just saw the movie a second time – god damn do I love this film. The acting is, above all else, believable. I felt as it I was actually there with this group of people (the cinematography had a lot to do with this as well).
The movie just oozes realism (yes, despite a giant monster clobbering a city) – for all intents and purposes, there was no “4th wall” to break, and that’s what makes the movie work so damn well.
sighs for a movie critic he doesn’t pay attention well, does he? The bridge collapsed in front of them–Rob stopping to talk to Beth was the only thing that saved any of them. Granted, he may know something about New York geography that I don’t, but they never made it across the bridge.
I think it was more than 49 flights too. I could’a sworn I saw a 50-something on the stairwell, plus then down a few (and at angle) to get to her apartment. Not to mention Lily took her shoes off before they hit the top, as any woman in unsensible shoes would do.
Apparently the movie makers paid more attention to details than Mr. Ebert.
I am guessing the monster is an alien. Making it some ancient god just seems too bizzare a reach for a movie like this.
My alien hypothesis is reasoned this way:
We know from the beginning that New York is done for. They describe the video as having been found at “site US-447 (formerly known as Central Park)”. If New York was still New York I cannot imagine them saying the location as “formerly known as Central Park”. So the movie is a flashback from far enough in the future that they have come to this way of naming things. If it was merely a few weeks in the future I doubt they would talk about it like that.
The morphology of the creature is all wrong to be a mutant. I suppose the term “mutant” could mean it could take any bizzare form but one would think it would still hold to some common biology found in all life on earth yet it is rather unique.
If it was merely a mutant I doubt it could withstand modern weaponry no matter how big it is. We have deep penetrating weapons capable of digging through many feet of concrete not to mention armor piercing weapons capable of defeating many inches of advanced armor. Hard to imagine some earthly creature, even a mutant one, that would be able to withstand such weapons.
If it was a mutant it is also likewise difficult to see how it would also have created its little buddies to do its bidding (whatever their purpose). One thing may mutate but two things simultaneously such that they are in cahoots? Again not likely.
Government experiment gone awry? I just do not see the military creating that thing. It is just too far removed from anything you would expect them to produce. Not to mention they would have had to develop the monster and the little monosters in conjunction. Just not seeing that.
The monster does not seem interested in eating people. Just killing them. The little monsters seem intent on something other than mayhem as it is remarked they seemed to want to do something other than kill people. So they sting them and the people explode later. Dunno what that is about except some sort of reproductive mechanism or some mechanism to further spread something that benefits them (do we really know yet?).
So to me that argues it is some alien creature. Something built to be a machine of destruction and exceedingly durable. It could also be some ancient, Lovecraftian god I suppose (although the Lovecraft pantheon of monsters is, in my understanding, far more hideous and scary and bigger).
Particularly of note are the little monsters running around on behalf of the big one. What is with their stings? If they just wanted ot kill people they likely could have done so rather than just sting them. There has to be some greater purpose to it and all I can figure is it is to either reproduce (ala Aliens) or spread disease or some sort of a start to terraforming (ala War of the Worlds).
In short the monster has a purpose in its mind beyond just smashing stuff for the hell of it. The only thing that makes sense if I am right about that is it is some prelude to an alien invasion (for all we know there are more of them smashing other cities…this movie we would not know that yet).