Reuben

Cloverfield takes a fairly tired concept (the destruction of New York Manhattan by monsters/aliens) and recasts it slightly by giving it the Paul Greengrass/Blair Witch bouncy-cam/you-are-there treatment. It suffers from some of the usual disaster movie flaws (an idiotically brave protagonist, for one) and adds in one really big one: If you’re going to give the camera to one guy, try not to make him the most irritating person alive. I started hoping Mr. Cloverfield would hurry up and stomp/chomp on our squad of survivors just so Hud would S the F U.

I’ve seen worse movies (this week), but not many that have disappointed me as much as Cloverfield. I was expecting some kind of revolution to emerge from all that prerelease silence, speculation and secret-guarding. Instead I got a few nice moments/shots and a snoozy story.

Aaron

With the pedigree behind this monster mash, it’s hard not to be disappointed in Cloverfield. Producer J.J. Abrams and director Matt Reeves created one of the most achingly earnest series ever with Felicity, and writer Drew Goddard penned some of Buffy season seven’s most affecting episodes. And yet here we get generically pretty characters who are more grating than gratifying. Who didn’t cheer when Hud (SPOILAR) finally goes thud?

Those who think that the characters are intentionally vapid and the movie is a scathing critique of youth and our YouTube society are giving it a lot more credit than it deserves. Sometimes a big, dumb monster movie is just a big, dumb monster movie.

Brian

Anyone who is familiar with my movie tastes and the films that I’ll pay $7 or more to see in a theater will be not at all surprised that I’m a little more forgiving than these two. I think the big problem here is hype. There was a lot of overblown hype for the movie and that set the expectations higher than they should have been. Was it great? No, not at all. But I don’t think it sucked either. It was a good length at about 90 minutes, and the style of the film helped separate it from every other monster/disaster movie made in the past 15 years. The treatment of the monster was pretty good — we didn’t see it too much, which helped keep it from getting too cheesy, and it wasn’t a black cloud or something stupid like that. True, the characters could be about as nauseating as the footage when people were running, and the plot was fairly predictable. But at least it tried to do something different. That effort earns it some leeway in my book.