Rapid Review: Cloverfield (2008)

“Okay, just to be clear here, our options are: die here, die in the tunnels, or die in the streets. That pretty much it?”
– Hud

SYNOPSIS: During a surprise leaving party, the lights go out and the ground begins to shake. With explosions happening everywhere, the party-goers decide to leave the apartment. Accompanied by a hand-held video camera, Hud manages to capture on film the terrifying incidents that occur. – via IMDB

I have heard relatively mixed reviews about this, but I have always been meaning to check it out because of JJ Abrams’s involvement. I was vehemently advised against watching this by a colleague. I decided to give it a shot anyway recently because his opinion was in the minority. Well, now I can say I have watched it. Another found footage film (yes, you heard that huge abundance of excitement right there). Joy. Not the worst one you can come across, but certainly not the greatest, but then I might just be biased because it is found footage. I always feel like I end up with a headache watching that jittery, jumpy film footage. Also, the characters had some terrible logic here, and I found them to be really silly. I didn’t develop an affinity or liking to any of them, so their plight didn’t really affect me all too much at all. Typical for one of these films, there is no happy end or explanations to be expected, and that is also alright. This is one of those movies you watch and try to identify with character actions and what was being done versus how you would have done it, which would have been fine, but like I mentioned, the characters were not being the smartest group out there. The performances were pretty standard, nothing revolutionary, and the story was also nothing new. It was better than expected and better than most found footage films, but still fell quite short of the mark of something for me like Chronicle, for instance. I don’t really have much more to say about it. It is alright, not the biggest waste of time, but certainly not something I will be rushing to rewatch, but not the totally useless film it was marketed to me as.