Cloverfield (2008)

By Dashel
in Movie Ratings

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Dashel

Posted
Posted (edited)

Just got back from the preview opener and was pleasantly surprised by the film. Its not great but it does have its moments. I think this is a perfect bookend for people who enjoyed The Blair Witch project. As such the shaky cam gets old quick, especially when the operator spends a good portion of the movie running and doing very fast pans.

If you need to see a disaster hit NY, I'd recommend this one over that other movie, I am Legend.

I was disappointed that it appears he just made up the monster and isn't from an established canon. (at least I can't place it until I see some high quality stills). I enjoyed the Lovecraft/Dagon theory the most going in. That you leave the theater still not sure what it was seems sort of a copout to me, though I guess we got exactly what the trailer gave us, a lot of teasers. It isn't a monster movie as much as a backdrop for the drama of the main characters. I enjoyed the camera man part at the end thoroughly.

Edited by Dashel
Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/613807-cloverfield-2008/
Share on other sites
Mentor

Guyro

Posted
Posted

I was disappointed that it appears he just made up the monster and isn't from an established canon. (at least I can't place it until I see some high quality stills). I enjoyed the Lovecraft/Dagon theory the most going in. That you leave the theater still not sure what it was seems sort of a copout to me, though I guess we got exactly what the trailer gave us, a lot of teasers. It isn't a monster movie as much as a backdrop for the drama of the main characters. I enjoyed the camera man part at the end thoroughly.

from reading the other thread, the things you find bad about the movie are what other people are going to enjoy most - it's what they are looking forward to most

Grand Master

Dashel

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

What are they looking for exactly? Its not that I found it bad, but seemed to take the easy way out by slapping together parts from other monsters then never really giving the viewer a good look. Don't get me wrong, it is worth seeing with a group of people/date movie.

Its an event/rollercoaster piece. I don't think it will hold much replay value though (except on video to be able to pause some shots). Its like all the phoney hoopla when Basic Instinct came out. POS movie that everyone had to see to chat about at the watercooler. This is a movie where geeks can go home and blog about it and their theories.

If his aim was to create a truly American monster, he has failed. Its devoid of mythos and is scenery, not a character.

Edited by Dashel
Grand Master

Rappy Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted
well you weren't THAT excited before.. lol. It was me and Rappy hypin' everything up.. lol.

Yeah you were all like "this sounds alright but its probably gonna be crap" but now your all stoked due to me and razorwing who sadly dont get a box office share...you know we should sue JJ Abrams.

Grand Master

Hurmoth

Posted
Posted
Yeah you were all like "this sounds alright but its probably gonna be crap" but now your all stoked due to me and razorwing who sadly dont get a box office share...you know we should sue JJ Abrams.

I'm stoked mainly because of the positive reviews from horror fans that are coming in (i.e. Blood Disgusting, etc.).

Grand Master

Sam Symons Veteran

Posted
  • Veteran
Posted

I saw Cloverfield earlier today, and in a word, it is: good.

I found that the camera work, while being annoying at times, added to the drama of the movie. You felt as if you were there, it was immersive, and it helped tie me to the characters better. I don't know if that's the case with everyone, but that's how I feel.

The monster...yeah, I was sort of disappointed. There were a few decent shots of it, but nothing to get worked up about. You go into the theatre expecting to learn about this thing, and come out expected to have learn about this thing...but you don't.

Cloverfield, while being a monster movie, isn't really a monster movie, in my opinion. I would call it a love-friendship-whatever movie with monsters thrown in. It's hard to explain. Well, actually, you could call it a monster movie with a rather strong focus on love. You get what I'm getting at. It has love. It has monsters.

I felt disappointed at the end of the movie, but I couldn't pinpoint why. Maybe it was to do with the lack of information about this monster, but I dunno. Just a note, Cloverfield is fairly short compared to other movies nowadays, but it seemed to drag out. I suppose this is a good thing.

It's worth a watch...but I don't think I'd see it a second time.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Camtasia 2026.1.3

      By Copernic · Posted

      Camtasia 2026.1.3 by Razvan Serea TechSmith Camtasia is the complete professional solution for high-quality screen recording, video editing and sharing. Camtasia 2026 makes editing your videos easier, and faster than ever. The new editor is packed with enhanced video processing, all-new production technology, an innovative library, and stock videos and other creative assets to help you create more polished, professional videos. No video experience needed. Anyone can create informative, engaging videos. Create professional, eye-catching videos: Add special video effects - Apply Behaviors that are perfectly designed to animate your text, images, or icons. Get a crisp, polished look without being a professional video editor. Drag-and-drop your edits - What you see is what you get. Every effect and element in your video can be dropped and edited directly in the preview window. And you can edit at resolutions up to beautiful 4K, for clear video at any size. Get exceptional performance - Camtasia takes full advantage of your computer’s processor with 64-bit performance. You’ll get fast rendering times and enhanced stability—even on your most complex projects. Camtasia 2026.1.3 changelog: Feature Updates Improved keyboard navigability in tool panels. Improved screen reader accessibility of headings in Preferences. Tool panels can now be resized using a keyboard-navigable control. Updated color of folder icon in User Library tab for better visibility. Grouped media now render a composite waveform considering all audio media within that group. Added Long Path Aware to the manifest of Editor and Recorder. Performance Improvements Improved performance for editing groups on the timeline. Improved the project loading performance when timeline has lots of trec media with cursor data. Updates for IT Administrators Updated cpp-httplib from 0.38.0 to 0.43.3. Updated expat from 2.7.4 to 2.8.0. Updated freetype from 2.13.3 to 2.14.3. Updated harfbuzz from 13.0.1 to 14.2.0. Updated libpng16 from 1.6.55 to 1.6.58. Updated pango from 1.57.0 to 1.57.1. Updated girepository from 2.86.3 to 2.88.0. Updated pcre2-posix from 10.47.0 to 12.0.2. Added new harfbuzz-gpu.dll. Updated FFmpeg from 7.1.1 to 7.1.2. Updated aom from 3.11.0 to 3.13.1. Updated dav1d from 1.5.0 to 1.5.1. Updated ogg from 1.3.5 to 1.3.6. Updated SDL2 from 2.32.4 to 2.32.10. Updated zlib from 1.3.1 to 1.3.2. Updated Nalpeiron binaries to version 4.4.69.3. Bug Fixes Fixed an issue which prevented some user submitted crash reports from being sent. Fixed a potential memory leak when decoding HEVC or VP9 video. Fixed a potential crash when trying to delete a range selection on a magnetic track. Fixed a bug with the Properties Panel showing stale properties when only a caption is selected on the timeline. Fixed an issue that could prevent the Opacity and Blur properties from being changed in the Background Removal effect. Fixed an issue where larger Camtasia online projects may fail to open in Camtasia Editor. Table of contents thumbnails are no longer created for Smart Player exports with no table of contents. Fix resetting skew revert to revert just skew and not scale as well. Fixed editing in Snagit with snagX file with Unicode characters. Fixed a bug where grouped visual media could be cropped in some cases. Fixed importing SnagX files with Unicode characters. Localization fixes. Download: Camtasia 2026.1.3 | 309.0 MB (Shareware) View: Camtasia Homepage | Tutorials | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Spotify finally removes the disco ball app icon in the latest update

      By AsherGZ · Posted

      Huh never had this icon on Android
    • Can't access the forum on mobile

      By RaidenX · Posted

      yeah it seems to be Edge only. The dialog buttons work as expected in Chrome and Firefox. The phone is using Android 16 (OneUI 8.5) and Edge version  149.0.4022.53
    • Can't access the forum on mobile

      By Mindovermaster · Posted

      I'm not aware of this issue, but to help the other guys.  What version of Android are you using? Did you try a different browser? To see if Edge is the issue here.
    • Windows 11's big performance boost is finally available for all

      By +Good Bot, Bad Bot · Posted

      I agree when are you going to read this (really poor BTW) article? Here is a better article so you actually know what is going on and answers questions you had in other comments --> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/05/speed-boosting-low-latency-profile-is-one-of-the-improvements-coming-to-windows-11/ It is unclear if one will be able to disable the new profile at this point but I am not seeing any reason why one would.

  • Recent Achievements

    • One Month Later
      Jamswaz earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Jamswaz earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Rookie
      Marzoid went up a rank
      Rookie
    • Community Regular
      coch went up a rank
      Community Regular
    • One Year In
      slackerzz earned a badge
      One Year In

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      512
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      188
    3. 3
      +Edouard
      157
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      83
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      75
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!