Cloverfield review

I saw Cloverfield last night.

I had spent the previous seven hours watching Lost episodes, so I was all JJ Abrams geeked-out. I had pretty high expectations.

And I think the movie exceeded them. I've read a lot of comments from people who've seen the movie, and there are many who hated it. Most of the dislike comes from two sources, as far as I can tell:

1. This is not a Godzilla-type movie. The vantage point is not from a military commander in charge of destroying the monster. You don't get broad-sweeping views of the entire scene, and not everything is explained. You only know as much as the ones caught in the middle of the situation.

2. The shaky-camera filming technique. Apparently this technique makes a lot of people queasy, even to the point of throwing up, and so they can't enjoy movies like this or The Bourne Ultimatum.

In response: I liked how we didn't know everything. The point of the movie is to tell the story of the masses fleeing the monster, who normally get about ten seconds of screen time. These people don't know what's going on. They're at street level, so they don't get the wide shots of the action.

And the shaky-cam added to the realism. I completely bought the idea that this was a video recorded by a few 20-somethings. I was also impressed with how the dialogue was very real. The actors stuttered, tripped over words, became incoherent, and in general acted like people under a lot of stress.

It also helped that the actors are almost unknown. Not being able to recognize anyone meant it was easier to suspend disbelief.

Anyway, I thought it was great. There were some things that bugged me, but it made me think and entertained me. Can't ask for much more than that.