That would all make sense if you cared about the characters as individual people. I don't think anyone (or very few people) did.
When the characters become generic, how they die makes little difference. (unless there's something particularly graphic or gripping about a death which there isn't)

I didn't care about a single one of them (cept the brother). but i collectively cared about their fate. So really, your argument of caring and it making sense is lost to me.

I was more interested in the group dynamics and role more than anything else. and i found that interesting. i honestly felt the role of the camera guy would die at the end. it has to. but it didn't happen. the main guy would die moments before. the woman who they spent the entire time rescuing, if anyone was to get off alive, would be her. how much i connected with them on a personal level was irrelevant to me. 1 night in (kind of) real time where people are more involved trying to escape than show different aspects of their personality and how life had shaped them is really the approach to take with it.

But if the look of the monster sucks which recent pics suggest, wouldn't that sort of take away from the "atmosphere" of the film itself??

BKB. the monster is in the movie for less than 2 minutes i would imagine. what you see in the movie more than anythihng else is the destruction hes leaving behind.

You actually don't even see that much destruction. It's mostly just walking up and down empty streets, tunnels, and stairways.

look at the streets while they're walking. in the subway, look at the lights failing. entire building collapsed on another. cars destroyed, glass on the ground, desbris and dust in the air all the time. damaged sides of buildings. eandom earthquakes.

i may have seen a different movie i think. like i said, the atmosphere for me is what did it.

I never gave it an A+. i said it could be an A+.

It isn't prestige amazing. When I leave the movie, i dont keep thinking about how utterly brilliant it was. I'm not left feeling stunned for a bit.

A lot of films have a huge effect on me after i leave the theater, while when i'm watching it, i'm just engaged.
This is one of those films that had a huge effect on me Primarily while watching it! once i've left the theater, my experience is over. after i'm done talking about it, thats the end of that.

I actually do think the atmosphere worked, It made you think there was more destruction than there actually was, and set the tone well. Yes, there were a few collapsed buildings and flipped cars, but they got away with having less of that by using the shaky-cam (which I liked for the most part) and lighting.

completely. even the looting and something as simple as lights going out or dust in the air. they never had to show us tonnes of high profile destructive pictures. you just believed they were surrounded by destruction.

Yay! We finally agree on something. And this bickering shall stop!
For now....

Oh. My. God.

I just got back from the midnight showing of this. 1200 seater, 50% full at midnight. That's really, really, really good.

I'll start out with the Star Trek teaser. It reveals nothing other than the fact that it's a Star Trek teaser, but man it's really, REALLY effective. The crowd loved it, and it got me hella pumped for it.

Now on to the movie. Oh, the movie. I'm not sure I've ever had a better experience at a movie in my life. And I'm not saying this because Cloverfield is even close to the best film I've ever seen, but because it delivers, and it really really delivers. Things start out a little bit slowly, and I could tell that the audience's huge excitement when it began was dying down as they went through the day/beginning of the party. But as soon as the lights went out, it was pure, brilliantly filmed chaos. No, the story wasn't all that good - in fact, the characters were rather stupid in their decision-making and caused people to laugh at times when you'd think they wouldn't be so brave - but I think everyone realized that, well, this is a monster movie, after all. And as soon as you let yourself accept that, the experience is pure moviegoing bliss. The action was just so sweet - every time the bugs or big monster appeared, you heard frightened swearing or excited swearing from the audience - the camera guy was really funny, and at times it really came in handy, but what surprised me, and what I wasn't expecting, was just how realistic they made it feel. It was such a ridiculous idea in the first place that you'd never think they'd give it such a this-is-happening aroma, but there really was a reason why this was filmed like a documentary. You feel like you're really there with those characters, and that they're real. It would have had 1% of the effect that it did if it wasn't filmed the way it was.

I thought the ending was very fitting, and although the audience probably wasn't a huge fan of it, they were so satisfied with the rest of the movie that - most surprising of all - there was a lot of clapping and whooping, which you rarely get with those awkward silence endings. I don't know why the other reactions seemed to be so bad. I was expecting this crowd to hate it, but aside from a few weak moments when things were ridiculous on a character level, they really really dug it. Maybe it was the setting. Midnight has got to be the PERFECT time to go to a movie like this.

For me, it delivered on every level that it should have. It's one of the best horror flicks I've ever seen...not because it's scary, but because it's equally effective and entertaining.

A

Oh, and I gotta comment on the look of the film compared to the budget. They handled the look so well that you'd honestly believe it cost like $100 million or more to make. The fact that it was only $30m and that this film is going WAY past that at the box office show that this could be a step forward for filmmaking, just in the way that 300 was.

This is not a film to miss; it was worth the hype.

Just make sure you see it at night if you wanna really experience it.

I'm actually kind of glad that I heard this wave of really negative buzz before I saw it, because I went in with such lowered expectations from what I had two weeks ago. It allowed me to really appreciate the movie for what it was.

Wow, has ANYONE in here heard of spoiler tags? WTF

this forum does not require spoiler tags

Every other movie review thread has spoiler tags. Look at NCFOM. Here I am trying to decide if I should see this tonight and I already know the whole movie.

the spoiler tags in here are upto the person's descretion. This place is for peopel to review and discuss something already seen. can't be expected everyone to continue on long discussions under spoilers.

this has been debated in this forum before.

Yeah, last time in I Am Legend thread, iirc.

dude the spoiler tags are not required, fellow posters choose to put them up.

i thnk spoiler tags should be put up if there are only 1 or 2 spoilers being discussed and also if there is lots of activity from people who haven't watched the film. however, people can't be expected to keep putting in spoilers portions of their posts that only those who have seen are privy to.

I'm seeing it in a few hours. But apparently, since the people running the theatres in my area seem to be totally fucking clueless, it's showing at the shitty downtown 4-screen theatre that still has at least two auditoriums without cupholders. So yeah, we've got a state-of-the-art theatre (and hell, another one that actually has fucking stadium seating and cupholders) on the other end of town, but let's not take Alvin and the Chipmunks out of the big 300-seater there and just relegate Cloverfield to the shitty theatre that nobody ever goes to.

This will probably be that theatre's first movie to sell out since 8 Mile over five years ago. No joke.

Perfect. People once again become too nitpicky. The acting isn't perfect, but it's convincing, especially from a cast of nobody's. I felt like I was right there in the action, like it was really happening. Not ONCE did I feel as if it was fake or unrealistic, except for once in a while, the dialogue. I think the sense of shock both Rob and the black girl experience after the death Rob's brother is perfect, as they're so scared shitless, while they're devastated, they just can't comprehend anything from the past 20 minutes, and thus, can't really show emotion until things have slowed down.
Regarding Hub's crush...


There were way more funny lines than I expected.

Towards the first half, when they show the aerial view of the monster, I felt disappointed that they showed too much, too early. But this disappointment was quickly eradicated by the atmosphere that they created, the tension, and the even CLOSER and complete view of the monster which I wasn't altogether expecting.

The ending was perfect as well, couldn't really have seen it ending any other way, it was the most realistic, and the most fitting.

AND YES IT IS TRUE THAT
I was the ONLY person in the 200 person sold out theater that noticed this, and everyone was pissed they hadn't.

As to reaction, a good amount of laughs, while I personally believe the film is just so gripping and intense there's no time for audience reaction, as everyone is just glued to the action. It really feels like you're right there, like it could happen to you, and I just think they nailed that aspect SUPERBLY.

The monster, I don't know what else I can say except it looks fantastic. I saw the sketches before, didn't peek at any pictures, but also saw some skeptical reviews/critiques of it, and I my expectations for it began to lower. But once you see that thing on Hub's camera, both close up and far away, you are entirely convinced that you are witnessing the most bad-ass scariest thing imaginable, but still not out of the realm of possibility. New York was amazing, I don't know how they did this with the budget they had.

I cared not minimally but as close to minimal as possible about the characters, which is why maybe I'm not as disappointed as some about their build-up, relationships, dialogue, etc. I really just was hoping this would be as groundbreaking in its style and presentation as possible, and it delivered. Yet this doesn't mean I didn't care entirely. Hud is a good guy that you want to see make it through, with real human reactions to the events around him, which is a big plus for the movie, and Rob and Beth, as well as Rob's brother's girlfriend all at some point make you feel for them, and the disbelief they still have that their world has been rocked to the core in a matter of hours.

That's all I have for now. I wish they said what type of brand that camera was, it'd be selling off the shelves. I know one thing, my Canon HV20 couldn't but I sure as hell wish it could.

For now, my mind really is blown, and I think my opinion can be trusted as if anyone was going to be disappointed by this film, it was me. I could have sworn by expectations for this movie were just way too high, BUT SOMEHOW IT FULFILLED THEM.

A+

And truthfully, to all you snobs of the critics forum that say spoilers are already forewarned, I think this movie has to be an exception to that rule. I just don't think it's fair that people on the fence about this movie have to come in and maybe even just mistakenly (looking at the page, not even a specific review) have the whole thing, or a major portion ruined for them. What's the extra effort in putting in a spoiler tag? At least for the first week it's out. I would just really hate to be someone who didn't think Cloverfield was my deal but wanted to see people's reactions to maybe reconsider...Is there really any harm in spoiler tags? It's like people are against it just to be against it.