Rating:

Way back in January, Cloverfield was finally unleashed upon us. Months and months of hype originally gave me mixed feelings but I couldn’t argue with the final results. It gave me a monster movie that I thought would never happen again after Roland Emmerich destroyed the genre with his disastrous Godzilla remake a decade ago. For a film like Cloverfield (check out my original review here), that was shrouded in secrecy before its release and leaves a lot of unanswered questions (not plot holes… big difference), the bonus features on the Blu-Ray release are just as important as the film itself.

Commentary: This was actually the last feature I used so I felt that it predominantly covered the same ground as the documentaries on the disc. Don’t get me wrong, there is some interesting stuff in the commentary, like what was going through Reeves mind when he was shooting certain scenes, difficulties on set, pre-production ideas, etc. But, some of it is common sense (aka I would’ve rather heard him talk about something else) and some of it is just the same thing said on the documentaries, worded differently. Despite Reeves coming out as really monotone and producing a somewhat dry commentary, I will say that his passion with Cloverfield comes through in a big way here.

Special Investigation Mode (Blu-Ray Exclusive): Gives you a GPS tracker (left side of the screen running vertically), the movie (upper right hand corner), a creature radar (bottom left) and a military intelligence info box (bottom right). This is, hands down, one of the most unique features I’ve ever seen on a DVD or Blu-Ray, which is why I wish it would have worked better. The GPS tracker is suppose to show you on a map, where the main characters are, where the creature is and where the military is. And it does… but only well after the fact. When the characters are on the bridge, it still shows them somewhere downtown and only after the creature’s tail knocks down the bridge does the GPS show it anywhere near there. The creature radar seemed choppy, only activating three or four times during the movie and then suddenly shifting from clockwise to counterclockwise. The info box was pretty interesting, giving some insight into what military intelligence thinks happened that night. Also hints as to how Slusho ties into the film and gives some theories on where the creature came from.

Document 01.18.08: The Making Of Cloverfield (28:22): I have to show some love for this making-of feature. It really is worth your time. From pre-production to fooling street side spectators with its fake shooting titles (there’s a whole sequence in here where they refer to it as Cheese), the cast and crew talk about their thoughts on making the film and the secrecy surrounding the production. By far the most interesting thing in this documentary is the puppetry that was initially used for the parasite scenes. They didn’t actually end up using them in the final film but seeing them being built and in action was great. It makes me wish they were used! I wonder if I could find some of these in the dumpster behind Paramount’s lot… Up close, these things truly resemble the bug creatures from Starship Troopers.

Cloverfield Visual Effects (22:31): Shows you exactly what you expect it to. Green screen before and after shots, pre-visualization and what scenes were actually shot on location. After watching this, I have to say, a lot of these shots were absolutely seamless. The guys who worked on the special effects are true artists.

I Saw It! It’s Alive! It’s Huge! (05:52): Shows the genesis of the creature and the different ideas they tossed around when coming up with the design. From shark eyes to its age and mannerisms, almost everything you wanted to know about the creature is explored here.

Clover Fun (3:56): Just some outtakes. Nothing really worth noting.

Deleted Scenes (3:24): I have a problem with these deleted scenes. Not because they’re terrible but because of the reasoning used to take them out. To me, Cloverfield really works because of its gimmick: the hand held camera / documentary style. From what I can from Matt Reeves commentary, they were taken out because they didn’t work in the context of the scene. But, if someone were to find a tape of a random person documenting a disaster, without any editing tools, you’d find some strange moments. That’s just life.

Alternate Endings (4:29): The two alternate endings, which have been online for quite a while, don’t really differ much from the theatrical ending. Commentary by Matt Reeves points out the differences and why they weren’t used. I personally think any of these would’ve worked just as well as the one we were given.

www.cloverfieldfiles.com: Put onto the special features menu but not as a web accessible link (I’m using a Blu-Ray drive on my computer so it would’ve been nice). If you venture over to the site, you’ll see 15 behind the scenes clips, which can be unlocked by answering multiple choice questions, putting pictures in sequence order or picking out the differences between two photos. I watched a few of them and for the most part, they seemed to either be longer versions of clips that are in the special features on the disc or they covered the same ground. Worth checking out if you’re really into the viral aspect of Cloverfield’s marketing.

The picture clarity and sound on this release is astounding. For a film that I didn’t think would deliver the goods on the small screen, it certainly surpassed my expectations. While the release is overall very solid, I wish that there had been a bonus feature about the viral marketing (which, no doubt, has prompted several other films to do the same thing). It was so integral to the success of this film that I can’t believe that it wasn’t talked about at great length. Nor can I believe that some of the viral games were left off of this release. It would’ve been great to play some of the clue games off of the Blu-Ray or at least have working links to them on the disc.