Living up to the hype is hard for a movie to do. Trailers can make a movie look far better than it actually is. Trailers can give away almost the whole movie sometimes, if you pay close enough attention. Cloverfield had a very smart trailer. It gave you just enough to make you want to know what the fuck was attacking New York. The trailers made it seem like the big pay off in the movie was the monster itself. After seeing it, I can say that it’s much more than that.

I avoided spoilers like the plague before seeing this movie, save for this article I saw on Digg (which I skimmed for the bullet points as not to ruin anything.) I really thought that knowing what the monster was would ruin my whole experience. This couldn’t be more wrong. Seeing a picture of the monster won’t really ruin anything for you. The monster isn’t what makes this movie awesome, the entire experience is.

“Experience” is the best word I can think of to describe Cloverfield. The gimmick of having it entirely in first person view mode works far better than I thought it would. After you get over the fact that it isn’t all just one long take and there’s editing, it totally works. At the beginning, I felt like I was at the party with them, shiny shirt club girls and all. Once the shit hits the fan, it only feels more and more real.

I haven’t seen a movie this intense since Children of Men. This is definitely the kind of movie you need to see in a theater. I was physically tired after each action sequence. It felt incredibly real. Maybe on a second viewing I’d notice more things that would break the illusion, but this time, I was there. People react how they really would. People might argue that the quest that the characters go on doesn’t really hold up, but I bought it. When shit like that goes down you stick with the people you trust.

The movie was also surprisingly funny at times. It could be the fact that comic relief is much easier after a very tense scene, but I laughed out loud quite a few times. Hud, the character who is holding the camera, is amazing. He comes in with genius lines when you least expect it. You learn to love him so quickly.

This movie isn’t without its flaws. Thank fucking god the main characters don’t kill the monster. That may be a spoiler, but damn, if that happened this would be a very different post. Other than the fact that some of the characters are a bit flat, my biggest complaint is the blatant “Is this a terrorist attack?” question. Obvious if buildings are fall in New York City, that question is going to come up. It isn’t even asked by one of the main characters, but it’s asked clearly enough to bother me. In real life, it would obviously be asked, but it still annoyed me and I’m not really sure why.

I can’t recommend this movie enough. Go out and see it. In a theater. Now. This is a brilliant take on a usually generic genre. It takes the idea to a whole new level. We don’t see the army general giving out orders. There are no huge overhead shots of the city with the monster running around causing trouble. It is one of the most unique Hollywood films I’ve seen in a long time. And I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.