I was suckered in by the viral business on the Internets. If I had no idea what it was about, that would have added a level to my enjoyment, but that was just impossible. They had to give us something, or no one would bother to go see it strictly for the ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at RevolutionSF (Joe Crowe)
Screen International
An exercise in guerrilla-style genre filmmaking that reframes a classic monster movie conceit as a post-September 11 allegory of big city trepidation, new Internet sensation Cloverfield emerges from the cocoon of its pre-release hype as thrilling piece ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Screen International
eFilmCritic.com (Jay Seaver)
We start at a going-away party for Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David), who is about to start a new job in Tokyo. Which, generally, is where you'd expect a giant monster to show up, rather than Manhattan. Rough luck there. An evacuation of the island is ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at eFilmCritic.com (Jay Seaver)
"Cloverfield" opens with some text on the screen implying that the
following footage was recovered from an SD camera in the area formerly
known as Central Park. This gives us plenty of information to set the
stage, that NY was at least partially ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at
Moviepie.com
As my friend and I left the advance screening of Cloverfield, JJ Abrams' latest production (note: NOT direction), we suddenly found ourselves paced on the sidewalk by a wide-eyed fanboy. He looked at us sheepishlyâand more than a little excitedlyâand ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Moviepie.com
Twitch
To call Godzilla a mere genre movie is to misunderstand history and not just the history of genre film. To call Cloverfield a good genre film is a well deserved compliment. ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Twitch
Frank's Reel Reviews
One of the most widely anticipated films since Snakes on a Plane went down in flames last Summer, finally gets its release. And like that film, Cloverfield has been riding a crest of viral marketing and Internet buzz that makes financial failure a near ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Frank's Reel Reviews
On Monday I thought Cloverfield was a brand of butter, or a mock-Tudor retirement home in South Wales. The film is actually an old-fashioned monster movie that has been retuned into an unexpected - sometimes unwatchable - sensation. Cloverfield is a ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at The Times of London
Chicago Tribune (Matt Pais)
The first great monster movie for the YouTube generation, "Cloverfield" captures New York, mid-destruction, with a startling, breathless urgency that legitimately deserves to be called a wild ride. Rob's frantic search for Beth results in a rougher and ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Chicago Tribune (Matt Pais)
Cloverfield, the latest giant monster movie, is getting some surprisingly decent reviews from critics who usually love to lay in to disaster movies of any sort. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, for example, concedes that it "is actually pretty ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at ShowBIZ Data
Warning: This movie is not for anyone that has the slightest hint of motion sickness. The entire film is shot 100% from the perspective of a hand held camcorder in documentary style⦠you know what Iâm talking about - Blair Witch but much better. ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Movies for Guys (J.C. Edwards)
We should have seen this coming. Team Cloverfield dropped more than enough hints suggesting they knew what they were doing, from the inspired viral marketing campaign to the seeds of a deeper mythology planted on message boards. But with hype meters ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at filmcritic.com (Sean O'Connell)
Who would have thought that the writer of UNDER SEIGE: DARK TERRITORY would one day end up directing one of the most groundbreaking films in the past twenty years? I just got back from seeing the top-secret JJ Abrams project known only as CLOVERFIELD and ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Bloody-Disgusting
I saw it. I saw the monster. The moment I looked up at it, I was in awe. Not for how the monster looked or shaped, but for how genuinely tense and terrified it made me feel. The destruction it left was unbelievable, and I was there. I was in the middle ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Just Press Play
If you ever watched one of those old giant-monster-on-a-rampage movies from the 1950's and wondered what must be going through the minds of the crowds of people fleeing in terror through the streets before the hunky scientists and military guys come in ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at efilmcritic.com (Peter Sobczynski)
After a seemingly endless wait (closer to six months in actuality), "Cloverfield," the much hyped, much anticipated, modestly budgeted "Blair Witch Project"-meets-"Godzilla" movie from producer/writer/director J.J. Abramâs ("Lost," "Alias," "Felicity") ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at eFilmCritic.com (Mel Valentin)
Cloverfield wasn't supposed to be any good. At least, that's what "insiders" like myself have been saying for a few months now. The barrage of annoying viral marketing campaigns surrounding the project have been going strong since this past summer's ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at ReelzChannel (Jeff Otto)
Godzilla meets the Queasy-Cam in "Cloverfield," a movie that crosses the Monster Attacks Manhattan formula with "Blair Witch." No, Godzilla doesn't appear in person, but the movie's monster looks like a close relative on the evolutionary tree, especially ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
Marketing movies is a tricky art to master. Once a studio starts messing with the heads of the masses, going outside the realm of your standard meat-and-potatoes trailers, will the moviegoing public catch the point? For example, the campaign behind ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at ReelTalk (Adam J. Hakari)
Cloverfield may go out with a bang, but it fades in with a whimper, albeit for good reason. Itâs the attack ofâ¦Exposition 101, a necessary evil never more so than during the movieâs beginning. We meet the characters with whom we will watch Manhattan ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Hollywood.com (Brian Marder)
Boston Globe
After months of cryptic trailers and postmodern stealth hype, "Cloverfield" turns out to be almost comforting in its simplicity. It's a short, efficient, terrifying monster movie, no more and no less. It's also to New York City and the American psyche ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Boston Globe
National Post
Much like The Blair Witch Project with its hand-held Camcorder style, this thriller from J.J. Abrams (Mission Impossible 3) and longtime creative partner Matt Reeves is in perpetual motion, both visually and structurally. Its side effects include ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at National Post
The first thing you need to get used to in "Cloverfield" is the potentially nausea-inducing shaky camera work, which makes "The Blair Witch Project" look like the latest Ken Burns documentary. Audiences will have to make other concessions, too. While ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at San Francisco Chronicle
Cloverfield isn't hard to describe, or to imagine, which helps explain why its trailer has generated so much enthusiastic buzz. Just stoop to that old dating game â The Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla, the cute video technique married to the ugly ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at The Globe and Mail
At his Manhattan going-away party, Michael Stahl-David plays a young man troubled by feelings for the girl heâs coldly leaving behind. Odette Yustman is a stunning hottie who was a close friend until he threw on the brakes. Now heâs leaving for Japan ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Sci-Fi Movie Page (James O'Ehley)
Robâs (Stahl-David) surprise "going away" bash winds up being a bigger surprise with more bashing than anybody attending couldâve imagined. Out of nowhere, some enormous Iguana looking thing stomps into Manhattan, drops its monstrous kiddies to the ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Arrow in the Head ("The Arrow")
Fangoria
At last CLOVERFIELD is here, after months of speculation, a brilliant viral marketing campaign and a final tidal wave of hype. It can be said right off the bat that the movie succeedsâoften very wellâon its own terms. Does it live up to the hype? Not ...read the complete Cloverfield movie review at Fangoria