Movie Review: Cloverfield

I saw Cloverfield yesterday, a movie I've been looking forward to for weeks. I saw a five minute clip on the internet a few weeks ago, and it has intrigued me ever since. What I didn't know is that I probably should have watched the entire movie on a screen no larger than a youtube video on my laptop. Cloverfield utilizes the queasy-cam, as a few have accurately deemed it - similar to the camera work in the indie-horror surprise hit The Blair Witch Project.

I would love to sit here and tell you how cool all the effects were, how intriguing the entire concept was - and surely, that's all true - but I truly was only able to watch about 15 minutes of this movie without looking down at my feet, taking a sip of cold water, or stepping out of the theater for a breath of fresh air. I sat in the second to last row, and was still finding myself feeling nauseous withing the first 15 minutes. I liked the idea - the entire thing is a remnant which documents the night a monster attacks New York city. Cool, it's like you're there, it's like you're right there in the movie. And the camera work is very accurate of this plot. The person behind the camera is clearly supposed to not have any experience filming. I was very frustrated at times at how far this went. At times it seemed as though the camera was being shaken simply to be shaken, even when the camera would go from one person to another, it would shake all over, showing the ceiling then the floor then finally stopping on the subject, well after the contents of my stomach were ready to get the hell out of there.

While this idea of having the entire movie made of video actually taken by the characters was interesting, there was no need to have shots where the camera just seems to shake for no reason. There are many ways the film makers could have made this much less nauseating. Children of Men achieved an effect of the feeling as if you are there, using handheld camera work, and did it without making me want to puke all over the kid in front of me. But the idea was that the characters make the movie, and that's cool - still, this is a film, and there are other films out there with similar ideas which do not go to the extreme that Cloverfield does. It sucks that after being excited for this movie for so long that my experience was basically one of pain and sickness. I'll probably still rent it when it comes out on DVD, and try the small screen so I can actually watch the movie, but it still sucks that the film makers couldn't have figured something out to make this movie less sickening in theaters. I was not the only one with problems. I saw about 10 people walk out of the theater, and one of them looked like he could barely even walk. Again, the idea is cool, but it was completely unnecessary to execute it in such a nauseating manner.

So, if you are in any way susceptible to motion sickness, do not go to this movie in the theater!! If you are even a little queasy for that kind of camera work, you will want to die by the time the monster even shows up. I can't stress it enough, don't go if you ever have felt motion sickness of any kind, because this movie WILL make you sick.