Barf bags, death certificates; theaters used to have all sorts of crazy gimmicks and hand-outs for various flicks that tried to stake their claim with audiences.

Cloverfield needs a goddamn seatbelt.

I'm not kidding, I'm thinking of suing for whiplash. This had to have been the most intense hour and a half of my life - well, at least in a movie theater.

With all the nutso marketing this movie got - is there any possible way the film is actually worth it? For me, yes, and then some.

I kept saying, when I would see the previews, if the filmmakers could manage to keep the intensity up, that adrenaline rush that permeated through the trailers and spots, they would have me. But even with that I wasn't prepared with how crazy it was.

Not to say that it doesn't take breaks; we get a few breaths here and there, at just the right times, but then the chase is on again.

In all the chaos and insanity, it seems like there would be absolutely no way to get to know any of the people involved - but we do, albeit in bits and pieces. Most of the character development happens in the first fifteen minutes or so, during the actual party, but those personalities reflect what their reactions will be when the shit hits the fan.

The main thing that I loved about it, though - when I was a kid Godzilla movies were my bread and butter. If you've ever seen any of those movies (and any monster movies period, really) you know that generally the stories we see aren't of the random people fleeing in the streets. For Cloverfield, that's what we get - average people trying to get the hell out of dodge when the buildings begin collapsing around them. And we care about them, for the most part - mostly Hud, to be honest, who provides extremely much needed (awkward, inappropriate, yeah, but well-intentioned) comedic relief. In any case it's a neat, serious spin on a genre that hasn't really been serious for decades. Cloverfield is what that 1998 Ameican Fakezilla film should've been.

The monster design SEEMED cool, but luckily we don't really get that good of a look at it, which is exactly what I wanted. I knew if there was a clear shot of the entire thing at once (there's one near the end that's close, and considering the shot is during the day, almost was too good of a look for me) the effect would be ruined, and I'm figuring the filmmakers knew this too.

Of course the camera has to be addressed. It's "cinema verite" style, so everything is filmed from a personal camcorder. It's never hard to tell what's going on, but sometimes, especially when running (there's a lot of that) it can be difficult to watch due to the shakiness. One solution is not to sit too close - I usually sit way up front but my eyes probably would've exploded had I done so with this flick. The special effects are dead on, and the graininess of the film makes it all seem that much more real.

Speaking of the filming - the use of this style of movie-making was definitely an indication of the times. More and more the real reporting we see comes from people's own electronic eyeballs - camcorders and cell phone shots are all over CNN. Wasn't Saddam's hanging recorded on a cell phone? Yeah. And try and tell me that the aftermath of the initial attack doesn't look like images from 9/11. It's not just a gimmick.

One of the people I watched it with said it was a "rollercoaster ride." I say that it's actually more of a whole amusement park - you get the whole shebang here. Yeah, if you have trouble suspending your belief that a monster is smashing buildings, you probably won't get into it - but you also probably didn't have a childhood, and have no imagination, and have no business watching films (or reviewing them - looking at you, Richard Corliss. Can Time get a real film reviewer at some point?). It's probably just a 6:30 in the morning angry ramble, but I don't care. This film was totally worth the hype, if even just for an adrenaline jolt, and needs to be seen in the theaters - so go with a big crowd and strap your ass in.

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