Title: Cloverfield{mosgoogle right}
Release Date: 18 January 2008
Directed By: Matt Reeves
Studio: Paramount Pictures
Rating: 9 of 10

Cloverfield takes the giant-monster-smashes-stuff genre and goes somewhere interesting with it.  Instead of an abysmal two hours of military and homespun heroes fighting something they can't hurt, we get something a lot more complex.

Told through the lens of a small hand-held video camera carried by a group of partygoers trying to survive the nightmare, Cloverfield manages to be mostly about the things that happened before the monster attack.  The "tape" that is being played is recorded over another, earlier tape, and glimpses of the original footage fill in the gaps when the camera is turned off by the survivors.  The audience is given a chance to reconstruct the lives of the characters through their action during the crisis, and the little bits of information about the past leaked into the storyline on the tape.  The actors offer impressive character development for a movie composed primarily of running and screaming.  After the movie is over, if you have been following closely, you feel strangely good about all the horror you just finished watching.

The monster is not Godzilla.  What it is remains uncertain.  The camera looks over the beast only rarely, and always at difficult angles.  The film addresses the inability of giant monsters to follow hapless victims into underground tunnels by introducing the idea that it carries smaller, and generally more dangerous, parasitic creatures that can fan out and ensure that everyone is in imminent danger at all times.  These creatures, that resemble some sort of cross between a piranha and a grasshopper, make sure to keep the pressure on, even in the subways and structures of the city, and even when the monster itself is visibly distant.

The hand-held camera work can get pretty sickening at times, and reports of illness in theaters have sprung up just like the release of The Blair Witch Project.  The motion sickness won't carry over to the DVD release unless viewed on a large television set, so don't be afraid to rent this movie if you get sick easily, but you probably wouldn't want to see it at the theater.

Cloverfield tells a story while still being a horror movie.  It keeps you excited and thinking, and makes you wonder how you would survive in the situation.  Cloverfield is a horror flick, and a love story, and surprisingly, it's a good movie.