Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) has landed himself a big promotion and with it a relocation from New York to Tokyo. To send him off in style all Rob’s suspiciously good looking friends are throwing him a going away party. What could possibly go wrong? Well, first of all his beautiful best friend Beth turns up with a date, much to Rob’s chagrin, and before long they’re having a stinking row culminating in Beth leaving the party early and she and Rob on bad terms. Things couldn’t get much worse.

As you’re probably aware, things do get a lot worse for Rob and his sexy friends. It’s been hard to avoid the film’s extensive viral marketing and the resulting hype. Thankfully, Cloverfield is more Blair Witch than Snakes on a Plane and has a lot more going for it than just internet buzz.

 

Before watching the film I was very sceptical about the hand held camera technique it employs. I knew the entire film was going to be shot as if taken on one home video camera, starting with party footage and testimonials from Rob’s friends and culminating in spectacular scenes of destruction as a Godzilla like monster crashes through Manhattan. I expected to be nauseas (after nearly throwing up during a screening The Bourne Supremacy) and definitely longing for the bigger picture. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Producer and creator JJ Abrams could have made Cloverfield as a conventionally shot action blockbuster, but we’ve all seen that film a thousand times before. What we get instead is a sense of intimacy and realism that makes the film’s events feel terrifyingly immediate and occasionally genuinely shocking. Having the monster glimpsed from a distance or through a cloud of dust, creates a sense of mystery and foreboding that’s refreshing after years of being overloaded with huge CG money shots.

 

A lot of the film’s appeal, and a willingness to suspend one's disbelief, can be credited to its likeable young cast. The characters are all easy to identify with and both performances and dialogue feel real. The heart of the film is Hud (TJ Miller), the man behind the camera. Though Rob is our hero, Hud is what holds everything together and his off camera quips bring an unexpected amount of humour to proceedings. Crucially you believe that Hud would keep filming throughout everything that happens, he’s just that sort of guy. Lucky for us, or we’d never know 'how it all went down'.

Cloverfield feels like a truly modern film. The way it’s shot, the deliberate references to 9/11, the unknown cast and its guerrilla marketing tactics all add up to make the film incredibly current in the best possible way. It’s a monster flick for the myspace generation.

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