I liked it. I tried not to buy into the hype, but I watched it on opening night so I guess they got me. With movies like this where the previews aren’t very revealing, I try to watch them as soon as possible assuming it’ll be ruined for me within a few weeks if I don’t. Just sort of a rant, but if Myspace spammers rate a 0/10 and YouTube commenters rate a 1/10, then IMDB posters have to be around a 2 or 3. Too many people complain about others not posting “spoiler warning” in their post titles. If you don’t want a movie to be spoiled, just avoid message boards, especially after the movie’s been released.
That being said, I’ve decided to just use the old technique of making users highlight to read spoilers. This is mostly because I try not to be that guy that ruins movies, but then all my reviews end up being, “worst movie ever” or “best movie ever.” Anyway, it’s basically what I expected: good, not great. It’s shot like The Blair Witch Project, and it’s only 80 minutes—I liked that. There are some times when I just don’t want to have to concentrate to enjoy a movie, and Cloverfield let me do that.
Spoilers: They could have replaced the monster with Godzilla and it would be the same movie except better, because it would have Godzilla. The similarities between this and Aliens vs. Predator Requiem were uncanny. Creature invades city. Attractive people between 20 and 30 involved. Reminiscent of National Guard commercials. Characters try to make it to an evacuation location before the hammer is dropped and the military bombs the city. Nearly everybody dies in the process.
Also, I forgot to mention this last week, but before No Country for Old Men, we saw, consecutively, previews for In Bruges, Pride and Glory, and Cassandra’s Dream. Not that interesting at first thought, but look closer and you’ll see that they all star Colin Farrell. Two in a row was like “whoa cool,” but three was sort of like the Twilight Zone. Correct me if I’m wrong, but 10,000 B.C. is gonna be awesome.