Ang Kape Ni LaTtEX

Well, it is and it isn’t. No spoilers here — at least nothing direct.

I watched Cloverfield last night and while to say that the conception of such a creature is awesome would be an understatement, the movie really wasn’t about the monster.

Surprisingly, it is a movie about people: the person who held the camera to film a surprise going-away party of his best friend, his best friend and his rocky relationship with his ex-girlfriend who will be left behind, and the other people who were in the party when the monster struck the city.

It tells not of the monster but of the way people react to dire circumstances. It shows that heroism isn’t something that is innate in a person — that sometimes heroism is nothing but a whim, part of the plethora of responses to man’s instinct to survive when life is threatened. It tells of love, of immaturity, of the choices a person makes. It tells, in its own special way, the value of telling the person we love how we really feel.

And this is why the story was told the way it was. Had the movie been made in the style of Godzilla (1998), it would have been cheesy, boring, and just-another-special-effects-flick. To show everything through a hand-held camera allows viewers to immerse themselves in the situation, literally putting moviegoers in the shoes (and eyes) of the character holding the camera, and gives insights into the decisions each character makes. Cloverfield doesn’t simply tell us a story. It puts us into it.

It will frustrate some that nothing much will be known about the monster, and the constant camera shake will frustrate people sensitive to motion sickness, but these are some of the things that make it such a striking, deeply moving film.

Highly recommended.