I just saw this movie and it was nowhere near what I expected it to be. Deadset, I was so pissed off with the format for the movie (handheld camera format) that I nearly turned it off after 10 minutes.
But, I unusually decided to stick with it. Im glad I did. I didn't think I'd enjoy such a movie, but I thought the format ADDED to the movie. The movie probably would be average if it stuck a traditional line of cinematography.
Did you enjoy it? For the record, I enjoyed "The Blair Witch Project" as well. That movie copped a lot of unfair criticism.
I think that's a case of knowing abit more about the movie before you watch it. Not that im criticising you or anything. Its just that sometimes i find that even a good movie can take a while to become interested in if i go into it with misconceptions of what its about...
If you knew it was shot using the 'handheld camera' look im sure you would have enjoyed it from the beginning.
As for the movie itself, i thought it was pretty entertaining. Using the hand-held camera was certainly a more innovative way of approaching it than going for the Godzilla approach, which would have been way too "been there done that".
The use of the hand-held camera gave it that unique quality. As did taking us through the story through the eyes/lives of the young characters and their struggle to survive. That was also pretty unique and refreshingly different from the more common broad story-telling approach where they show the military and a thosuand different story lines in trying to deal with/kill the creature.
That's why i also liked Signs and War of the Worlds. It was the major crisis told through the lives of a small group of people you care about. It sort of makes you think about how you would react in that situation and thats what i thought worked really well for this movie.
As they say, pretty much every story has been told a thousand times before. They're all based on the same basic myths and legends from thosuands of years ago and also from Shakespeare. So one of the things that makes a good movie is putting a refreshing, not seen before spin on that same story. And Cloverfield did that IMO.
