Cloverfield seems kinda like a no brainer. Take the Blair Witch Style and attach it to a Summer Blockbuster type of film. Well,l I suppose it is a compositer's nightmare, what with so much CG carnage while the camera is bobbing and shaking all over the place. However, all that hard work paid off....Cloverfield is likely the best January movie you'll ever see! (and before you start offering exceptions, make sure you're not thinking of a movie that was technically released in Dec. and only widely released in Jan.)

So first of all, the effects are spot on. It totally feels like you're just watching footage from this camcorder...I'm super critical of CGI, but everything looked real in this movie.

Secondly, it's scary as all hell! You know disaster is looming around every corner, and you care just enough for these characters to hope that somehow they'll be able to avoid it. Sometimes they do...sometimes they don't. And then there's a scene a subway tunnel....that's all I'm saying. But let me just say it was the best use of scaring the audience through a camcorder's use of nightvision I've ever seen...and that trick has been used quite a bit lately. I screamed like a wee girl at one point there.

The movie is a giant monster movie, like we're all familiar with, but from such a vastly different perspective. To steal a bit from another review I read, you know that somewhere there's a general with a cigar in his mouth, yelling at his troops to find a way to kill this thing. You know there's an ace fighter pilot who just proposed to his girlfriend. You know there's a president, wondering whether to nuke or not. You know there's a journalist, trying to get close enough to get the story, and that there's a scientist on the brink of finding the creature weakness. But the camera never ventures anywhere near these characters. We're traveling along with the extras you see running beneath the monster's feet yelling "Godzilla!" (no, it's not Godzilla...it's...something else. Something scary and awesome looking. That's the best I can do).

And then there's the cunning use of flashbacks in the movie...sort of. I wasn't expecting this bit, but it was very effective...that's all I'll say about that.

The best way to describe this movie is a "monster simulator" You know those big boxes you can get into at malls that move around on hydrolics and you fly a space ship, or ride a roller coaster, or travel through a volcano....well it's like that for a monster attack. And that is awesome!!

Sure you have to apply a little suspension of disbelief...there's a number of points throughout the movie (that subway scene especially) when Gus (our faithful cameraman) would have left the camera behind. And sure, maybe he wants to get all the money monster shots, but would he really be filming just enough intimate scenes with his friends to create an effective story arc for each? But, if he didn't, we wouldn't have a movie, so that's all it takes for me. Plus the character is just quirky enough, I can believe...sort of.

And I'll just finish up by if you did enjoy the movie and wanted more (like I did...look, there's no scientist or general, so you're not going to get a whole lot of exposition)...look up some of the viral marketing for this movie. You can learn alot more about the characters and the mysterious soft drink known as "slusho".