Cloverfield

Blu-ray Review

Paramount Home Entertainment

Released: June 3, 2008

Cloverfield was a huge hit at the box office, and for good reason as it brought back some great memories of classic Godzilla type films, with this monster absolutely destroying Manhattan. The Blu-ray release has been highly-anticipated as it is an extremely interesting film in the way in which it was shot, through the eyes of five young New Yorkers. Think the Blair Witch Project mixed with Godzilla.

The film stars Hud (T.J. Miller), his best friend Rob (Michael Stahl-David), as well as Beth (Odette Yustman), and others.

The film features Rob and Hud searching for Rob’s love, Beth. The goal is pretty simple, find Beth and get the heck out of New York as fast as possible before the monster destroys everything. The 30-story monster is absolutely destroying Manhattan island in Cloverfield, making for some truly amazing scenes.

It is a fun film to watch as it will have you on the edge of your seat, putting you into a position where you have a very interesting perspective on everything.

The film is extremely entertaining, making for a great modern monster movie. I can’t recommend it enough, definitely worth watching!

I was very nervous as to how Cloverfield would handle being transferred over to high-def Blu-ray, as the film itself was done in a way that you would think would not fit well on that type of format. Oh how I was wrong…

The video is presented in a 1080p/VC-1 transfer and looks absolutely wonderful. The colors and black levels are absolutely top-notch as the scenes have a very distinct feel to them. The level of detail and the way it was done with the film camcorder effect make for some great texture-work.

There is a bit of noise in some of the extremely dark scenes, but overall I was pleasantly surprised, Cloverfield looks tremendous on Blu-ray.

The audio on Blu-ray is presented in a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround track and to honest, is about as good as you can get on the format. This is a reference-quality audio mix to say the least as the presentation is terrific. The dialogue from the actors is perfect as the vocals are presented in just the right manner.

Beyond that all of the ambience with the screams of people in the streets, the little low-end pulses from the subwoofer, etc. really immerse you in everything going on in the film.

The way it uses the spatial work around the speakers, its sound effects, etc make this a perfect audio mix on Blu-ray.

The special features on the Blu-ray release of Cloverfield include all that was in the DVD release and then some.

The big exclusive feature for the Blu-ray release is the Special Investigation Mode, which is a Picture-in-Picture feature which allows you to look through the film much m ore closely. On the little screen you get the movie playing, while a map is shown on the larger screen.

The larger screen shows the movements of military and civilians, as well as the monster. You then get information on the location of the monster, characters, etc. This is actually a very fun exclusive.

Beyond that you will get alternate endings as well as deleted scenes and outtakes.

Added on top of those add-ins, you also get a documentary called The Making of Cloverfield. The documentary does a nice job at taking fans behind-the-scenes to show how the film was brought together, how it was made, etc. For those who were curious like all of us were, about the film prior to its release, this is a great documentary.

Cloverfield Visual Effects is also included on the release and shows us how they put together some of the awe-inspiring visuals in Cloverfield. A lot of attention is paid to the monster as well.

Also featured is commentary by director Matt Reeves, as well as more background information into the Cloverfield case.

Cloverfield has been given great treatment on the Blu-ray format with a tremendous video and audio transfer, as well as a very cool exclusive Blu-ray extra. This is well-worth the money even if you already own it on DVD.

Film: 8.5 A very entertaining and fun monster flick, shot in a very interesting manner. Plenty of excitement to be had here!

Video: 8.8 A great Blu-ray transfer, extremely crisp and clean with great textures and black levels.

Audio: 9.8 Near perfect audio on the Blu-ray format. If you want to show off your home theater audio, this could be one to turn to.

Special Features: 8.7 The same great features from the DVD release along with a cool exclusive Blu-ray feature.

Final Score: 8.7