Kind of a slap in the face to all the fans who spent all that time on it but whatever it didn't really bother me much.

That wasn't the point of the viral marketing.  Their goal was to keep people from knowing what they were doing while still generating buzz.  Kind of like how Star Wars Episode 6 masked itself as Blue Harvest because if they said 'hay, we are filming sequel to popular movie' then people with fucking video cameras would be all over it trying to get details.

Personally, I think some of you are missing the point of the movie particularly

2. What the hell was with that ending? The least they could do is at least have someone pick up the tape recorder a year later or SOMETHING, it was way too abrupt. The very last black screen remained for 10 seconds and when the credits rolled the audience simultaneously all yelled "what the? that's it?"

The movie isn't supposed to have an explanation.  It's a fucking videotape being recorded by a bunch of dumb white teenagers.  Do you honestly expect the monster to be RED HERRING for something deeper or a mysterious scientist character to appear and explain to the random civilians that "this monster came from the deep.  Here is a scientific analogy of the creature!"  Look at the remake Dawn of the Dead or any of Romero's classic, untouched zombie films.  While it's "hinted" that radiation is the cause of the zombies the story never tells you how they came to be but the whole point behind the movie is entertaining you with action and blood (or in the case of Romero's films, the downfall of capitalism and retirement or whatever stupid moral message he tried to fit in them).

It was designed with some Cthulian mythos behind it.  You don't know what it is.  You're not supposed to know what it is.  The story is about survival, not how a bunch of plucky teens discover the origins behind a terrifying and unnatural if not SUPERNATURAL monster. 

When the movie was first labeled and all the previews came out I feared that the directors would cave in and show the beast.  For whatever reason, American moviegoers are completely incapable of withholding information.  Look at Alien; you rarely see the alien itself and it was fucking terrifying for a 70s movie but if it was remade then the alien would be all CG and you'd see it in every panel which would kill the effect.  Our greatest fears are the unknown but people instantly hate it when they leave the theaters having to think for themselves.  I always thought people complained when shit was put on a silver platter for them but now all I hear is "jjadams didnt tell me every detail about monster stupid fuckig film boooooooooo."

lso I guess my real problem with the movie was how it had no point other than being 9/11 porn! I can elaborate but I think no one wants that.

Please elaborate.  I want to hear your side of this.  I don't think it's capitalizing off 9/11 at all.  It is extremely difficult to have ANYTHING set in New York where the city explodes without having people painfully remember 9/11 but it was a monster movie.  It's not like the ending had every citizen crowding around the city remains in a candlelight visage while Toby Keith sings a somber eulogy to those that fell.

I enjoyed the film all the way to the very end where they actually showed the monster up close.  It completely DESTROYED the mystery behind it and the film went from a SURVIVE THE CHAOS movie into a CHEAP MONSTER FLICK.  The ending itself EVERYONE DIES was realistic.  There were no heroes in this story.  Nobody came out on top and killed the beast singlehandedly.  All you had left where the character's memories which seemed like a poignant message enough.

I wouldn't go out of my way to give this film a golden globe or fifty million awards but it's a pretty original flick as far as building up a foundation from nothing (the original trailer didn't even have a title... first in American film??) and it's a pretty decent thriller.

7 outta 10 maybe?

EDIT: Haha, here's the developer's official statement on the monster.

The producer J.J. Abrams says, "The concept for the monster is simple. He's a baby. He's brand-new. He's confused, disoriented and irritable. And he's been down there in the water for thousands and thousands of years."

And then I found this really awesome statement by the writer who pretty said what I said.

And where is he from? "We don't say deliberately," notes the writer, Drew Goddard. "Our movie doesn't have the scientist in the white lab coat who shows up and explains things like that. We don't have that scene."

right, first off, you have to understand why people make movies; they are meant to show us something, however flimsy the premise. this is ESPECIALLY true with science fiction. Frankenstein was about how man shouldn't play God, King Kong's final line has a really stretched premise about how beauty destroys ambition, and Godzilla has its parallel to Hiroshima.

so what's the point in Cloverfield? the monster is never elaborated on, so it can't be that. as far as I can tell it's to present a story. now what kind of story is it? honestly, if you really thought the love story was GOOD in any way, you won't have a problem, and apparently the Notebook would just break your heart.

no, to me, the point of the story was to show how people would react in a disaster. and therein lies the 9/11 problem. none of the characters are really that great in the movie, mostly developing motivations of "I...like you..." and we're supposed to treat this like a pseudo-documentary I suppose, but it just falls flat when you realize it's all just 9/11 shit over and over. there's that smarmy JJ Abrams gleam on everything too, like how we never get to see the monster till the end or how nothing in the viral marketing made any sense at all (Marcus, what are you talking about? virally marketing shit works on brands because people want to find out what's in the brand, like who the new Batman villain is or what Halo 3 is about. you can't do it well with a monster no one knows about, and it kind of falls flat when the site in question has nothing to do with anything). it all seems very Lost, with home cameras. no one is really allowed to develop in any scene, by necessity of the movie, and the whole movie is just OH MY GOD...THE CITY...THE PEOPLE...and it all struck me as very lame and hokey.

a random monster attacks a city for no reason we are given, and we follow a bunch of flat characters around while 9/11 happens all around them continuously. it's all rather boring and pointless and full of moments where JJ is probably looking at his audience, fist pumping his dick, because he's just so proud how clever he was!

and granted a bit of it is clever, like the flashbacks, but when none of it leads to any cool or significant plot moments, when it's all a documentary that gives no answers at all, all those cool little gimmicks are just kind of irritating. you're supposed to hold on and enjoy the ride, and in that aspect Cloverfield doesn't disappoint, but neither does Spiderman or the Incredibles or any other of thousands of movies.

it was just pretty disappointing for me, especially considering the original predicted premise of multiple cameras recording the monster, and it possibly being Godzilla or Cthulthu. Abrams couldn't get over his gimmicks long enough to have our characters be more than backstories that resolve themselves, and the result is a rather pornographic disaster movie that seems more like 9/11 than it does an actual film.

that being said, go ahead and see it if you already were going to. it's not a bad movie by any means, but it irritates me because I feel like it could have been so much more under a more competent director.

All right, reading your response I see we have two totally different ideas of what films should be.  As far as I'm concerned, I go to films to be entertained or at the very least to have my emotional strings pulled.  If the movie has a message, like There Will Be Blood's "greed vs. fanaticism + there is only moral grey area" then I take it in and make note of it.  Often times the message is what adds to the entertainment but I have absolutely no problem spending 5 quid to see a vapid film about shit getting blown up.  I try my hardest not to support garbage like MEET THE SPARTANS but if a movie shows even the slightest bit of competence I try to get excited.

I agree the whole love triangle thing was hokey and the characters had this sort of altruistic Japanese anime I LIKE THIS GIRL I WILL RISK LIFE N LIMB TO SAVE HER thing going on but while the movie was definitely dark and depressing I think the whole idea behind it wasn't people reacting to a disaster so much as a commentary on monster movies in general.  Maybe I'm over thinking things but in EVERY blow-up-the-city monster movie the focus is on romanticizing the monster and making the humans look bad.  Here, we have this horrible, terrible beast that's just ruining everyones lives and fuck... everyone dies.  I left the theater somewhat depressed but shit blew up so I was happy.

With that said, I rarely follow Hollywood.  I didn't even know who Abrams was until someone said "oh yeah he directed lost r sumthing" and I replied "lost... is that the show where people crash land on a deserted island but it's not really deserted and there's this guy who throws knives and this fat guy who looks like claudio sanchez and this little black kid and this pregnant lady and YEAH I NEVER SAW A SINGLE EPISODE OF LOST!" 

In all honesty I watch so very little of prime time television and the latest blockbusters that everything is good to me.  I hate driving around town with traffic and gas prices so I just download whatever I need to watch and ignore all the trailers.  The last film (before this one) I saw in theaters was...

...eh, i'll get back to you on that.

I liked how the monster had no explanation, if only because there's no way to explain something like that and not have it sound ridiculous, y'know? Like, if they tried to put in some backstory on where it came from or what it was, people probably would've just rolled their eyes and been like "oh, yeah, right."

I think it could've done with even less story, actually. Because like Steel and Marcus pointed out, the love story aspect fell way short. It wasn't believable at all, and made for some of the worst scenes in the movie.

Overall though, I liked it, and I would recommend it. If you have even a vague idea of what the concept is (all from handheld), then you really shouldn't be bothered too much by the constant shaking. It wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting.

Also, it was a great movie theater movie. Like, I saw it with a really loud audience, and that helped add some to the entertainment. Even people who disliked it responded strongly. And this movie really lent itself well to an over active audience, because there's no exposition that you have to try and pay attention to, or anything like that. In fact, now that I think about it, this movie wont be as cool on DVD as it was in theaters.

interesting side story: every review I've read about this has mentioned that a significant amount of people got sick from all the motion camera, since unlike blairwitch or other handheld cam movies, this one moves a lot more.

Yeah, I had read a lot of the same stuff before seeing it, and I was surprised by how still it was. It was very clear most of the time, and I didn't notice anybody having any problems with it in the theater I was at.

Also, did you notice how in the end when the lady was saying her name to the camera, it was almost exactly like that famous shot from blairwitch? She even had snot coming out of her nose and everything. Do you think they did that on purpose, as an homage or something?

I kinda want to see this but if it's just gunna be HEY RUINED NEW YORK + scared people, then that kinda sucks, because the whole TERRORISM SURVIVORS parallel was done to death after like before the end of 2002, and provides a flimsey one dimensional subtext, and monster movies generally have such great potential (such as godzilla).
Also I remember reading that tonnes of people (back then when a tonne was more than one and a half people) got motion sickness from Blair Witch, some people are just sensitive like that.
But man I am a huge war of the worlds(book) fag so I tend to expect survivor stories to be more reliant on musical farts.

right, first off, you have to understand why people make movies; they are meant to show us something, however flimsy the premise. this is ESPECIALLY true with science fiction. Frankenstein was about how man shouldn't play God, King Kong's final line has a really stretched premise about how beauty destroys ambition, and Godzilla has its parallel to Hiroshima.

so what's the point in Cloverfield? the monster is never elaborated on, so it can't be that. as far as I can tell it's to present a story. now what kind of story is it? honestly, if you really thought the love story was GOOD in any way, you won't have a problem, and apparently the Notebook would just break your heart.

no, to me, the point of the story was to show how people would react in a disaster. and therein lies the 9/11 problem. none of the characters are really that great in the movie, mostly developing motivations of "I...like you..." and we're supposed to treat this like a pseudo-documentary I suppose, but it just falls flat when you realize it's all just 9/11 shit over and over. there's that smarmy JJ Abrams gleam on everything too, like how we never get to see the monster till the end or how nothing in the viral marketing made any sense at all (Marcus, what are you talking about? virally marketing shit works on brands because people want to find out what's in the brand, like who the new Batman villain is or what Halo 3 is about. you can't do it well with a monster no one knows about, and it kind of falls flat when the site in question has nothing to do with anything). it all seems very Lost, with home cameras. no one is really allowed to develop in any scene, by necessity of the movie, and the whole movie is just OH MY GOD...THE CITY...THE PEOPLE...and it all struck me as very lame and hokey.

a random monster attacks a city for no reason we are given, and we follow a bunch of flat characters around while 9/11 happens all around them continuously. it's all rather boring and pointless and full of moments where JJ is probably looking at his audience, fist pumping his dick, because he's just so proud how clever he was!

and granted a bit of it is clever, like the flashbacks, but when none of it leads to any cool or significant plot moments, when it's all a documentary that gives no answers at all, all those cool little gimmicks are just kind of irritating. you're supposed to hold on and enjoy the ride, and in that aspect Cloverfield doesn't disappoint, but neither does Spiderman or the Incredibles or any other of thousands of movies.

it was just pretty disappointing for me, especially considering the original predicted premise of multiple cameras recording the monster, and it possibly being Godzilla or Cthulthu. Abrams couldn't get over his gimmicks long enough to have our characters be more than backstories that resolve themselves, and the result is a rather pornographic disaster movie that seems more like 9/11 than it does an actual film.

that being said, go ahead and see it if you already were going to. it's not a bad movie by any means, but it irritates me because I feel like it could have been so much more under a more competent director.

Holy shit I love you

Edit: So is Cloverfield like the Rudy Giuliani of movies

I really enjoyed this movie.

I don't really want to try to tackle everyones complaints because for one I don't need everyone to like it with me, and secondly its practically impossible to change message board user's opinions.

I think the love story part of the plot suffers from the format and presentation of the movie. Relationships aren't usually simple things, especially when they're dysfunctional or not your own and the fact that this movie doesn't offer a lot of back story doesn't really help this out. From what I picked up this wasn't some girl the lead just sorta liked, they had been friends 'forever' most likely he had always loved her and then they had their one night of passion, blah blah then he whimpered out. Then bam, hes going to Japan they're both stubborn, leave on really bad terms, ruined their prior relationship and then hey the world is ending.

Everyone is confronted with their own mortality, the fragility of life and the fact that we're not all invincible and he realizes that hes an idiot and doesn't want to leave the girl thinking he doesn't care about her. A significant point is that he knows Beth isn't okay, he gets the call shes hurt shes stuck shes going to die without help, theres no thought that hey 'I'll fix things between us once this all blows over'. If he evacuates when he has the chance, shes not going to be there and hes going to go on living realizing that he was a dick to this girl he loved and she died thinking he didn't care about her and he maybe had a chance to save her.

Without the love story it would of been a humanistic viewpoint of the monster/disaster genre but one missing alot of aspects of humanity. When shits going down and the worlds falling out around you, yes you're wanting to survive but you're also fearing for the lives of those you love.

Also, all the gripes about the 9/11 imagery are being a little unfair. Yes its in NYC and hey theres destruction, uncertainty, and people being afraid, but its not going to far or being exploitive.

Fish, if you actually thought the love story was a positive you need to see some better films.

I don't think its a positive, but I think they developed it the most they could of through the format the film utilizes.

I'm not trying to say its one of the most emotional and romantic love story ever in film, I just think it was satisfying enough to justify where the plot goes.

Yes, apparently it does have something to do with Slusho.

There was a character in the movie who wore a slusho t-shirt as a in-joke.

There you go.

I just saw this today. Personally I really enjoyed this film and was pretty satisfied in the end. I didn't really think this was the best movie, but probably the only film of this kind I will ever experience.

That camera musta have had crazy ass battery life and durability. The fact that the tape survived shitloads of explosions..

It made me think more than every other movie I have seen.

you must not watch a lot of movies huh

anyway i saw this and uh yeah it was pretty cool.  after watching it i bought a nokia phone and sipped on some mountain dew but i'm not sure why???

My thoughts..-

Wow wtf just happened.