[There are no spoilers in my review. Seriously.]Cloverfield.
Drinking way too much tequila.
Your mom.
What do these three things have in common? They've all made me vomit. Yes, that's right, I puked because of Cloverfield. I should have known that it was bound to happen. From the trailers, I knew what I was getting myself into. But in the days and hours leading up to the movie, all I could think about was seeing what the monster looks like.
I had not thought about the possibility of getting a headache from the JJ Abrams-produced film about a creature that attacks the city of New York. I knew that it was going to have that home movie look, but I didn't realize how shaky the camera was going to be.
I'll say it once: the camera was fucking shaky as hell.
I watched the first 20 minutes hoping that the shakiness would go away somehow. But that's exactly what the director intended. The intensity of the film would not have been as crazy had it been shot in a more traditional manner (rather than the one camera first-person view).
The shakiness affected me so much that midway through the movie I went to the bathroom and vomitted. A lot. I mean a lot. This was my first time doing that because of a movie; I usually just feel sick and have a massive headache when I see movies that are shaky. The last one was Traffic. It was filmed in the traditional sense, but the camera was shaky throughout its entirety. I had a pretty bad headache from that one.
However, my first shaky movie encounter was The Blair Witch Project. Like Cloverfield, this was also a movie I was excited to see. The problem was I had closed my eyes for the majority of it. I opened them at the perfect time to see the final scene though. But I didn't puke. How could I? I barely watched the movie.
But for this modern monster movie, I tried my best to keep my eyes open. That's how much I was locked into the movie. After the bathroom incident, I was able to go back to my seat and continue with the movie. I still had to close my eyes for the really shaky scenes, but I managed to get through the rest of the film without any major problems.
Cloverfield was more than just a puke-inducing monster movie in a predictable city like New York. The movie is jampacked with scenes of varying intensity. At times, it was also pretty funny thanks to the character Hud, who is the man behind the cam. It also had a sadness to it that I cannot reveal, but all I can say is that they used a clever technique in order to give it that extra bit of "realness." If anything, I was more touched by this than any other element of the film.
To put it succinctly, this movie was all about the experience. This was kind of like going on a new ride at Six Flags. You basically know what's going to happen, but you have no idea how you're going to get there and how it's really going to feel like. Like a rollercoaster, it slowly but surely builds up excitement, and you can't wait to get to the moment when it finally happens - when you finally see glimpses of the beast. And just like a rollercoaster, there are ups and downs, turns and bends, all leading up to the end of the ride.
Notwithstanding a horrific bathroom situation, I thought Cloverfield was awesome. It was beyond anything I had expected it to be. Yes, it's still your bread-and-butter popcorn flick, but there's something here that you can really feel. There's something here that you'll think about days after you see it. There's something in this movie that will stay locked in your head, and maybe even your heart.
There's something here for everyone, and for me it was losing my Master Wok meal halfway through the film.
Rating: 4.5/5
Edit: I just checked out Roger Ebert's review, and found this portion to be interesting -
"The entire film is shot in Queasy-Cam hand-held style, mostly by Hud, who couldn't hold it steady or frame a shot if his life depended on it. After the screening, I heard some fellow audience members complaining that they felt dizzy or had vertigo, but no one barfed, at least within my hearing."
Not one puker?! C'mon! Am I seriously the only who puked because of Cloverfield?! I'm officially embarrassed. Please leave a comment if you, or someone you know, also puked. It'll make me feel better. kthxbye
