Being in the middle of a bit of a “life style” change (divorce and moving, again) I’ve not had chance to make it to the Big Screen much over the last couple of months and have got a little bit out of touch with what’s on, so when a friend of mine called to say “we gotta go see Cloverfield” I had no idea what the movie was about or why he was keen.

He sold it to me as “The Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla” which turned out to be a pretty accurate description, although I enjoyed it a LOT more than GodZilla.

The movie is almost split in to three seperate “acts”.

The first being a party where we’re introduced to the main characters and the relationships between them is developed is I suppose necessary to try and make us attached to the characters so that we actually care a bit about what happens to them later, as well as providing explanation of their later motivations, but it just seemed a bit long to me.

or perhap’s I’m just getting impatient in my “old age”..

the second act is where the shit hits the fan, as it were, and things start going badly wrong…

I think this bit was done very well, with it being in the “amatuer Video” Blair Witch style, which keeps you in suspense as to what’s actually happening, although depending on your sense of humor, you might find some bits more funny than scary.

There is a slight feel of “911″ to it at some points, but the head of a certain statue kind of puts paid to that and for me was one of those over the top “comic” moments that makes me irritate other people in the cinema by laughing at “scary” movies.

There’s also a great scene where they get stuck between the monster and the army attacking it, followed by another great scene, and well placed change of pace, in a subway station, which turns out to be the “calm before the storm” that is the third act.

This is one of those movies that I had very little idea of what to actually expect when I went in, but turned out to be an absolute gem, imho, and one that I will be getting on DVD to add to my collection.

Tags: Movies