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Reviews
Cloverfield
A $25 million dollar budget and a handheld camera
By
PETER KEOUGH
|
January 23, 2008
CLOVERFIELD
2.5
Stars
If the makers of
The Blair Witch Project
had had a $25 million budget, or if the
Godzilla
people had had digital video technology and computer-generated special effects, they probably would have come up with something more original than
Cloverfield
. But credit director Matt Reeves and producer J.J. Abrams for the premise, which by now is familiar to all from the saturation marketing. Friends throw a surprise party for a guy leaving Manhattan for Japan. They give the dumbest fellow in the room a camera. Then something awful destroys the city. Kind of puts one’s personal problems in perspective, doesn’t it? Well, no, because it sets up that old disaster-movie cliché where the hero desperately tries to rescue his beloved while the world is being destroyed — the difference being that
Cloverfield
is shot with a handheld camera by someone making stupid comments. Despite the surreal images and the gratuitous 9/11 references, all this amounts to is about a $40 million opening weekend.
84 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Circle/Chestnut Hill + suburbs
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Cloverfield
no way, this movie was dope. if only it didn't have actors...
By
shine
on 01/25/2008 at 11:28:29
Add a Comment
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