Cloverfield starts screening at midnight tonight, and I can’t think of a better time and setting to check out what’s looking to be one of the most interesting films of 2008. If you’re at all curious about the film, I’d recommend not reading anything else about it and just going and checking it out as soon as you can. See it on a big screen, and see it in a full theater. Then let me know what you think—on Monday, I’ll put up some sort of “What’d you think about Cloverfield” post or something here on Blogtown—and that’ll be that.

I saw the flick Tuesday night, and the more I think about it, the more I like it, and the more I wonder how it’s going to be received. The hype on this picture has been immense, and by the time the end credits roll, I’m not sure whether audience members are gonna be stoked, or relieved, or disappointed, or confused. (There were people with all those reactions at the screening I attended.) In some ways, Cloverfield is little more than a pop blockbuster, a monster adventure flick. In other ways, it’s incredibly inventive and clever and witty and creepy, and pretty much one of the weirdest/ballsiest/coolest mainstream movies I’ve seen in a really long time.

I think the thing I like the most about it is its sense of immersive spectacle: I didn't get a chance to really go into this in my review, but the most astounding thing is just how engrossing the handheld camera makes the film. (I can't get one scene--all I'll say is that it takes place on the Brooklyn Bridge--out of my head.) The camera's not like the one in Blair Witch, where it feels gimmicky; here, once you get past the novelty of the format, which takes maybe 15 or 20 minutes, you really feel like you're in the film, running along with these kids, astonished and bewildered and excited by what's going on. I won't go into it a lot, 'cause honestly the experience of seeing this stuff for yourself, and catching totally believable glimpses of stuff that's strange and epic and unbelievable, is what sells it. But the way that director Matt Reeves has the camera catch blurs and hints of what's going on during this really bad day in New York feels accurate and engrossing, and the fact that what's going on is incredibly huge and bizarre and incomprehensible just adds to Cloverfield's hypnotic tone. There's stuff that's just as big as what happens in Independence Day or The Poseidon Adventure or whatever in Cloverfield, but the point of view is totally different--here, we're down on the ground, we're with people we like, we're being shepherded around by an overwhelmed military, we're learning what little we can from TV, we're running and hiding--and it changes everything.

This, along with The Host, is what monster movies should be like: Inventive and daring and weird and fun. Everybody's seen some dude in a rubber Godzilla suit tear through miniature cardboard buildings a thousand times; focusing on the human element of what's going on makes this sort of escapist adventure feel not only far less tired, but also opens up whole new ways to watch these sort of genre movies--whether it's paying attention to The Host's swipes at political allegory or getting caught up in Cloverfield's exploitation/satirization of our video-soaked culture. Cloverfield shamelessly takes stuff from Godzilla and Alien and a dozen similar films, but still, it somehow feels like nothing we've really seen before. So yeah. Go see it, and come back on Monday. I'm curious to see what people think.