Decades from now, classes will be taught about what Cloverfield says about our world's fears, doubts, insecurities, and the impact of our reliance on technology. Granted, none of these issues are that groundbreaking, particularly in the horror movie genre, which has always been the best barometer of our fears and anxieties as a nation. Vampires came to life as the fear of female sexuality (the essence of the Dracula myth) spread around the world, mummies speak to our collective fear of the afterlife, and zombies are the embodiment of our secret fears of the villain who looks like us (is it any wonder that the undead have had a huge resurgence in the era when the world is more afraid of plain-clothed terrorists than evil empires or global warming?). Perhaps the most amazing and accomplished example of this trend is the long-anticipated Cloverfield. Directed by Matt Reeves and produced by J.J. Abrams, Cloverfield is a monster movie for the new millennium, most notably, the post-9/11 world in which we live. The producers can deny the parallels all they want (and have), but a film where a New York landmark gets destroyed (the Statue of Liberty), ash-covered people try to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, and insanity reigns in the Big Apple could only come from a consciousness who witnessed the tragedies of 9/11. And the style - the entire film was shot with handheld cameras - is so clearly a product of the news footage and visuals that the world watched on that fateful day in September 2001 that you have to wonder if Cloverfield will hold up decades from now or if it will only stand as a time capsule of when it was made. Regardless, for now, Cloverfield is one of the most riveting experiences you'll have in a movie theater and one of those incredibly rare films where the final product actually lives up to the hype.

The set-up of Cloverfield is that we're watching a video recording recovered from a disaster site, which is now the property of the Department of Defense. The film opens with Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) greeting his girlfriend Beth (Odette Yustman) in bed. Someone taped over the good stuff, and we jump forward a few weeks to Rob's going-away party. His relationship with Beth has collapsed, and we're introduced to a few major characters - Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel), his soon-to-be sister-in-law Lily (Jessica Lucas), best friend Hud (T.J. Miller), and a random acquaintance whom Hud has a crush on named Marlene (Lizzy Caplan). After about fifteen minutes of party banter and character set-up, all hell literally breaks loose. It starts with a tremor and moves quickly to massive city-shaking explosions, as the head of The Statue of Liberty bounces through the streets of Manhattan. When news footage pops up of a Godzilla-esque creature playing real-life Rampage with the buildings of New York City, most of Midtown runs for their lives, including Rob's party guests. After a failed attempt to cross the Brooklyn Bridge, Rob receives a frantic call from Beth, who left the party early after a fight and who is now trapped under debris back in the monster's path. Rob decides to head back into the chaos to save her, with his friends right behind him and Hud taping the whole doomed excursion.

Cloverfield has been compared to The Blair Witch Project because of its visual style and Godzilla and The Host because of its subject matter and monster design, but like the few great films that can truly blend together a cohesive tapestry of cinematic influences, it takes what it has learned from its predecessors and transforms it into something that feels completely new. Reeves shoots Cloverfield in such a shaky, frenetic manner that you might want to bring some Dramamine to the theater and, though that aspect can be difficult to get through, it's a creative design that works wonders for the material. Let's be honest - if you were running from a skyscraper-sized creature, you wouldn't stop to steady your camera. Reeves, Abrams, and writer Drew Goddard do a brilliant job of offering the occasional breather, just so the audience doesn't puke, but don't expect much of a let-up. There are a few moments in Cloverfield - the first time we really see (and run from) the monster and a blood-curdling moment in the subway tunnels - that rank with some of the most intense horror moments in years. Horror movies often work best when they show you something that you've never seen before and, trust me, you've never seen a monster attack from your own POV like this before. It's almost impossible not to feel your heart race.

Those early moments have such an insane, pulse-quickening, hands-sweating intensity that they're hard to top by the rest of the film. I would never give anything away, but the end of the second act and the beginning of the third definitely drag a bit, largely because we've seen the most intense stuff (at least until the very end) pretty early in the film. And for a movie that runs only about 75 minutes (plus 10 minutes of credits, which you really should stay for just to hear Michael Giacchino's awesome score), the existence of any drag is surprising. It's a forgivable lull, but there's a sequence up a stairwell and back down again, where Cloverfield started to lose me, but it should be noted that the scene came nearly an hour into the film and was an anomaly.

So, except for a few scenes, Cloverfield is completely riveting cinema. Some people will hate the style, the brevity, the nausea, but one thing about the film can't be denied - it's as ambitious as anything we've seen in a long time, taking old styles and making something completely of the now. We see so many movies that do the bare minimum, but Cloverfield cuts no corners and tries to do something incredible. The monster will get the press, but every member of the team, from Goddard's clever script to the seamless special effects masters, deserves credit for shooting for the stars and making a monster movie so clearly of this world.