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| Cloverfield | 
 enlarge | Director: Matt Reeves
Actors: Odette Yustman, Lizzy Caplan, Mike Vogel, Jessica Lucas, Michael Stahl-david
Studio: Paramount
Category: DVD
List Price: $29.99
Buy New: $1.98
You Save: $28.01 (93%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $1.98
Avg. Customer Rating:  (629 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1092
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed), Spanish (Dubbed)
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 84 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: PARD352064D
UPC: 097363520641
EAN: 0097363520641
ASIN: B0014Z4OQG
Release Date: April 22, 2008
Theatrical Release Date: January 16, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 My Favorite Movie This Year November 4, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Whats wrong with ppl?? Unless you are prone to gettng motion sickness this movie is incredible. The graphics exspecially on blu ray are incredible, I am picky as hell and this is the only movie made this year I could watch more then once. If you do not care for bad endings then you wont like this movie, Thats where the bad reviews are comming from, Some ppl just cant handle it. Even if you dont like the plot (which I doubt) The graphics exspecially on blu ray are just incredible! Its a new movie with a new idea. I really hope they come out with a second one.
 I wish I could give it 0 stars! November 4, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
You know a movie is bad when it is set in New York but named after a road in Santa Monica, CA..... This gives you an idea how unimaginative and mindless the movie is.
I didn't mind the cinimatography. However there wasn't really a plot to peak of, the characters were pretty lame, and the monster was pretty one-dimensional. In general, I say don't bother with this movie.
Lean, taut thriller marred by empty characters and obvious-reliance on other movies October 30, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you've seen Robert Altman's "The Player," you've seen the stereotypical Hollywood pitch - "It's 'Deliverance' meets 'Ordinary People' meets 'Marathon Man,' but it's got a heart." Movies are defined by how they reference other movies - that's how they get sold in today's bottom-line driven, play-it-safe Hollywood culture.
"Cloverfield" was easily pitched as "It's 'Blair Witch' meets 'Godzilla' meets 'Aliens' meets 'Friends,' with a paean to 9/11 thrown in." Adopting the same fiction of "BW" - that we've found the videotape capturing horrific yet mostly unseen events happening to real people - "Cloverfield" tells the thankfully-terrifying tale of a gargantuan monster tearing apart Manhattan.
Unfortunately, while we cared about Heather, Josh and Mike to some degree in "BW," we really can't muster up any empathy for the cadre of uber-hip twenty-somethings "Cloverfield" throws us into. These are obviously people who dress according to magazine covers and have memorized the cliched roles from "Friends." There's a Ross-Rachel love story going on involving two leads, while the guy's brother and best friend throw him a going-away party that the best friend videotapes. This follows the tired cliche of everyone on the tape talking about the lovers' "secret undying love for each other." The guy is even going to Japan, for God's sake, just like Ross did in a plot contrivance to keep the Ross-Rachel story "interesting" for another bloated season.
This tripe occupies the first fifteen minutes, and then thankfully the monster shows up. The movie's handling of the monster is its greatest strength, as the monster is shown in terrifying glimpses and quick shots. This thing is a behemoth, destroying the Brooklyn Bridge with an accidental swipe of its tail. Perhaps more terrifying, it drops space-lice from its skin that are miniature demons straight out of "Starship Troopers" crossed with the baddies from "Aliens." This is scary stuff.
The story follows our intrepid band of twits as they try to first escape Manhattan and then to save the girlfriend, Beth. Manhattan is destroyed, convincingly, by both the monster and the U.S. Army. The movie never really explains what's going on, and this leads to several truly terrifying and shocking moments I won't spoil here. But this part of the movie is what "Godzilla" should have been.
Unfortunately, the videotape of the carnage is recorded over the lovers' tryst, so we get perfectly-timed snippets of their relationship-bliss intercut with the action. If we cared about these two, I suppose it would rise to powerful stuff a la "Titanic," but since we don't, the love story is an annoying distraction.
Much has been made of the jerky handicam style of the movie. I saw it on DVD, so the TV screen was probably more merciful than a full size movie screen. But I think those who are nauseated by the jerkiness of the camera are reflecting their distaste for the characters. After all, when Steven Spielberg went all herky-jerky with the opening scenes of "Saving Private Ryan," it was hailed as a high-water mark of filmmaking. There's a great difference between watching the storming of Normandy than there is watching the lives of twits being rent asunder, colossal monster or no colossal monster.
Less is more October 24, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is one of my favorite action movies. "Cloverfield" may not be so original when it comes to hand-held camera, but the constriction of the scenes made me come out of the theater trying to visualize the rest. It really stayed with me in a way that I had to go back for more. Yes, I saw it three times now and the DVD is now part of my collection. JJ Abram did a good job, I must say. And it's true when they say that less is more. You don't need to see the monster all the time. It is already there through the growling, the fast glimpses and the chaotic movement of the characters. I felt like a real monster had attacked New York and the scenes kept rolling on my mind. I does make you a little dizzy because of the unsteady camera, but that serves the movie right, giving the audience a vivid impression of what it looks like to be in the middle of a war. JJ Abrams wanted an American monster film and I guess he did it. I loved it!
 Cloverfield manages to be awesome and terrible at the same time. October 23, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This movie has 3 major problems:
1 - It takes entirely too long for the monster thing to attack, up to that point it's a How To guide for anyone who wants to write a pathetically boring Relationship struggle movie.
2 - Once the truly interesting part of the film begins, it all ends far to quickly. And Even though the Idea of keeping the Monster largely off camera is pretty compelling, a lot of the shaking camera stuff failed to enthrall me as much as give me a migraine.
3 - I guess I'm not allowed to share spoilers, so let me just say, the plot (besides the "Giant Monster in Manhattan" bit) is just awful and I'll leave it at that.
However, visuals, audio, and the rest were overall entertaining. This is not a bad movie, but check your brain at the door.
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