lemmy caution
Flesh Eater
Reged: 03/25/02
Posts: 1565
Loc: Neenah Wisconsin USA
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I just returned home from a midnight screening of Cloverfield. Without mentioning any real spoilers, it really surpassed my already high expectations. I didn’t know what to expect in terms of the concept of a giant monster movie that tries to paint a realistic scenario. But in this case they pulled it off wonderfully. I loved the sense of smallness and vulnerability of the people as they are going through the city, which is something that I don’t think has ever been more fully captured in a film like this before.
Another nice thing about the experience is the preview trailers. They had a full trailer for Iron Man which was basically just the comic-con trailer only longer, and it looked great. They also had the very first teaser trailer for the Star Trek prequel, which was very short but managed to really capture a feeling of nostalgia.
In short I though the initial buildup was effective, the majority of the film had a real level of tension that held up and the ending was both effective and satisfying.
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MEMBERS FOR THE ROMERO REPEAT KILL CORPS WANTED!
Men, Pick Up Weapons!
Kill Your Daughters Yourselves!
Im The One That’s Going To Kill My Girlfriend!
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MojoNexus
Flesh Eater
Reged: 10/22/01
Posts: 1077
Loc: Manhattan, KS USA
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W00t! Thanks for the post!
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Lick my plate...
Mojo
My DVD collection!
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Slayer_McKill
Rotting Corpse
Reged: 09/07/03
Posts: 310
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Just got back from seeing it and I agree with just about everything you've said Lemmy, except the ending being satisfying. I don't want to give anything away but I will say that they should've added something at the end to explain just what happened to the city and how it ended.
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Jaws
Living Dead
Reged: 06/13/00
Posts: 2170
Loc: NY
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Loved this film! LOVED IT!!!! See this film in the theaters. And se it in a theater with a good sound system. This film had me sucked right in. Felt like I was there running for my life. I loved it!!! Just a great time at the movies. Did I mention I loved this film!!
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Dr Peligro
Voodoo Master
Reged: 05/25/00
Posts: 7640
Loc: Québec City
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Just came back from seeing it. I tried to keep my expectations low, because I figured movies that have tons of hype and awesome trailers often tend to be huge letdowns. Fortunately, it wasn't the case this time, and it ended up far surpassing my lowered expectations.
********** SPOILERS AHEAD **********
The ''chaos, destruction and confusion'' scenes were pretty damn awesome. The movie masterfully put you right in the middle of the kaiju apocalypse, and almost made you feel like you were there. I also LOVED how they didn't go about explaining everything about the monster : FINALLY a Hollywood flick that gets the fact that the unknown and the mysterious are way scarier than the meticulously overexplained.
But even though I really enjoyed the movie overall, I'm gonna post my nitpicky complaints anyway, if only to provide some balance to the unabashed lovefest 
First, I was getting pretty tired of the ''normal life'' intro. I was starting to fear that, now that I knew what bland lame-asses the characters were, I was going to be less interested in what happened to them once the shit hit the fan. And to a certain extent, that did happen (especially when they went on a moronic quest to find a probably-already-dead girl instead of trying to save themselves). But the sheer awesomeness of the monster attack scenes quickly made me forget that.
Also, the very end was pretty unsatisfying. I know it fit with the realistic tone and all, but for a movie of that type I was expecting something more unexpected, shocking and cleverly thought out.
Finally, the monster itself was kinda generic-looking. I wanted something more weird and freaky-looking (that ''multy-finned whale with legs'' drawing that was making the rounds would have been much better IMHO). Plus, they showed a bit too much of it, and a bit too clearly (especially near the end). And finally, it's size seemed really inconsistent : in some scenes it looked almost as large as Godzilla, and in others he looked a mere 30 feet tall.
But the overall greatness of the panic and destruction scenes was enough to make me forget these grievances, and overall I'm very pleased with the movie. Although it'll probably lose a lot of it's impact with repeated viewings, or on the small screen.
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We're all champs when we're drunk.
-Paul Kemp
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Slayer_McKill
Rotting Corpse
Reged: 09/07/03
Posts: 310
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****(SPOILERS AHEAD)****
You know, you bring up an excellent point about the creature's size. At the beginning the thing was ridiculously huge but seemed to shrink as time went on (except for when it somehow got high enough to take out the helicopter). At the very end it did seem like it was only 30 ft. tall or so.
Speaking of the helicopter I was also kinda bugged that they'd take the risk of getting so damned close to the thing (it's a big island after all, why fly right next to the monster?). The entire ending seemed very forced all in all. Things like that or Hud dying b/c the monster somehow snuck up on him were real "what the hell?" moments.
I also agree with the stupid decisions of the characters. I mean I know they needed a reason to have them stay on the island but good god that was a dumb one.
Come to think of it, cutting out all the character build-up stuff, the movie itself was terribly short. It makes it kind of hard to believe the government would go for the "hammer down" option at that juncture.
****END SPOILERS****
Even with those complaints, I still have to say that I was very pleased with this movie. It surpassed almost all of my expectations and they were set pretty high. I'm honestly not sure if I will buy the DVD though because I don't know how good the movie will be when you take out the element of surprise.
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The Creature
Living Dead
Reged: 04/26/99
Posts: 2302
Loc: Tucson, AZ
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I had really high expectations for Cloverfield as well and the were easily met. I think that Cloverfiled is a great fresh look at the Monster movie and I expect many copycat films to pop up within the year.
thoroughly enjoyed this one! 
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Knifey
Flesh Eater
Reged: 06/20/04
Posts: 1254
Loc: Obamaland, Massachusetts
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I am looking forward to seeing this after hearing all sorts of good things about it. But as usual, I am so damn busy I probably won't see it til its on HBO, etc..
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"You're a gentleman," they used to say to him. "You shouldn't have gone murdering people with a hatchet; that's no occupation for a gentleman."
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EdgarAllen
Living Dead
Reged: 09/16/00
Posts: 1170
Loc: Star City
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I saw this earlier this week (was actually trying to find DIARY OF THE DEAD, but it's not playing anywhere near me). I generally thought it was very well made and effective. Didn't know going in if the shaky POV would bother me, but except for a couple of scenes I adjusted to it quite quickly. I even jumped once which was cool as I didn't think this movie would surprise me that much. I agree with several of the comments above, too much of the monster is shown near the end (the CGI gets pretty noticeable here) and I think this film may not hold up very well over repeated viewings. One thing that I was expecting and didn't really catch was the tie-in to the pre-release marketing campaign. I thought there was going to be some elaborate explanation for the monster's origin or why it started attacking the city in the first place. Was I sleeping through part of this or was it dealt it in some way?
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"Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday."
-Psalms 91:5-6
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