Cloverfield (2008)

Director: Matt Reeves

Writer: Drew Goddard

Composer:  No score but there is an end credits cue that I suspect was written by Michael Giacchino although it's not listed on IMDb.

Starring: Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel, Odette Annable, Anjul Nigam, Margot Farley, Theo Rossi, Brian Klugman

More info: IMDb

Tagline: Some Thing Has Found Us

Plot: Cloverfield follows five New Yorkers from the perspective of a hand-held video camera. The movie is exactly the length of a DV Tape and a sub-plot is established by showing bits and pieces of video previously recorded on the tape that is being recorded over. The movie starts as a monster of unknown origin destroys a building. As they go to investigate, parts of the building and the head of the Statue of Liberty come raining down. The movie follows their adventure trying to escape and save a friend, a love interest of the main character.

My rating: 6/10

Will I watch it again? No.

SPOILERS VERSUS MOTHRA!!!  YARRRRRR!

Well, the monster was cool looking.  I'm not buying that a skyscraper can lean like that against another and not collapse both...but the monster looked cool.  Why would these kids risk all of their lives to see if the dude's girlfriend was on the 39th floor of the leaning skyscraper even though the monster was badass cool?  Seriously?  The helicopter crashes and everyone in it dies but our three kids, shortly after the most kick ass cool shot of bombing the cool monster happened?  And after they wake up from the crash, the scary, cool monster is right on top of them (where FINALLY one of the kids snuffs it) but the military is nowhere in sight after a constant barrage of bullets and bombs?  I'm so glad that dude was killed by the neat-o monster.  OK, so I guess the military was absent because they were about to drop a nuclear bomb on the sweet monster but you still hear bombs drop after the kids conveniently escape and they take the camera from the dude's dead brother.  Whatever.  Cool monster, though.

While I can appreciate the different take on the Godzilla-like monster movie, it lost me at so many points along the way.  I know it's not real but I give my suspension of disbelief to hundreds of movies a year.  All I ask in return, for the most part, is a little respect that I'm not required to hand over every ounce of it.  The characters in this film do things that real people probably wouldn't.  The film opens with a lot of unnecessary setup so that we might try to care for them.  I wasn't buying it. It would have been more believable if the mother of the main guy was late and stuck in the apartment or something with a stronger bond.  Regardless, there are Hollywood tropes all through this thing that manipulate the characters only to get them to the next one.  I liked the baby monsters in the subway.  Hell, I rather dug all of the monster stuff; it's the people bits I had a problem with.  When you have things like the kids in the subway following the military guys and you hear nothing but footsteps until they pass through a hanging bed sheet to reveal a LARGE, BUSTLING, NOISY emergency hospital ward, that takes me out of it.  A bed sheet is not going to conceal that much noise.  I know some of you think I'm being unfair but it's when a picture is filled with dumb stuff like that that it lessens my experience.  But then again, for some reason I can continue my love/hate relationship with PROMETHEUS (2012) and still respect myself in the morning.  Go figure.