Some people hated Cloverfield. I honestly don’t get it. The movie is fast-paced, action-packed, has great special effects and is rarely, if ever, cheesy. How many monster movies, especially movies about big monsters that attack cities, can make that claim? Cloverfield is probably the closest thing you’ll get to a “realistic” monster movie.
As for the people who claim they got motion sickness or what not, give me a break. How come people react so poorly to shaky cameras? The camera work was really not that shaky and, besides, you should have known what you were setting yourself up for. By the way, I took my mom to the theater to watch the movie, and she was suffering from massive vertigo at the time (she was on medicine and was supposed to do these stupid exercises). She didn’t notice anything wrong with the camera work, and loved the movie.
Anyway, if you want to read my Cloverfield movie review, you can, but the following is about the Cloverfield DVD special features.
There aren’t a ton of Cloverfield special features, but where they lack in quantity, they make up for in quality (and how much you want to bet that a 2-disc special edition is on its way out for the holidays?). There’s an audio commentary from the director, which I didn’t listen to – because unlike some reviewers, I don’t have time to re-watch every DVD release with voice-over narration.
I did watch the deleted scenes and alternate endings. As one might suspect, the deleted scenes and alternate endings are minor variations of what we got in the final release. That are a few cut scenes from the party sequence which don’t add much but are fun to watch anyway, while the alternate endings have subtle but significant adjustments. Ultimately, the director went with the right choice of endings, as the other ones lack the emotional punch. All of the scenes come with optional director’s commentary, of which I did listen to!
There’s also a 28-minute making-of featurette, which looks behind the scenes of Cloverfield. This is one of the better making-of featurettes I’ve seen recently, as we really get a pretty good look at what went into making the film, including the green screen action, set design, so on and so forth. One of the most interesting things is that it appears as though most of the actors have no idea what the movie is about while filming; they are constantly talking about how they know a few scenes, but that’s about it. J.J. Abrams and everyone else took the secrecy of the movie quite seriously.
There is also a featurette dedicated to the Cloverfield special effects. While this one doesn’t vary too much from special effect documentaries for other movies, it’s always interesting to see how the people approached the creature design, CGI and so on and so forth.
There’s also a small blooper reel for those of you who like seeing other people who make more money than you do mess up.
Overall, I enjoyed the Cloverfield special features. I know a little more about the movie than I did before, and that’s always a good thing. If you didn’t like Cloverfield the first time, I suggest watching it again – maybe you’ll like it this time around, or maybe you’ll just settle for being wrong and having bad taste. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s a shame you didn’t see it in theaters, but the DVD comes out April 22nd, so you’ll just have to do with that.
For more Cloverfield movie details, click here.
