An interesting failure

Rating: 5/10 (11 June 2008)

Certainly this is the most "realistic" giant monster movie I've seen attempted yet. It takes the matter-of-fact intensity of the Shibuya district sequence from "Gamera 3" and expands that into the better part of an entire film. In that respect it's quite impressive. But unfortunately even the spectacle of the monster attack scenes is scaled down to the events of a home movie. Realism doesn't necessarily make a better monster movie.
Please note the viral marketing campaign I've read about here on IMDb completely missed me. I suppose that might have gotten me worked up a bit more before seeing the film, but ultimately it must stand on its own apart from whatever clever advertising is devised. The "Blair Witch" documentary style of filming was a bit to get used to, since I was not expecting this. And the biggest flaw of "Blair Witch" reappears here - whiny, obnoxious characters that just never shut up. I had no real stake in seeing whether these people survived or not. And since the film makers here take a tip from Spielberg's "Jaws" and dole out appearances of the creature sparingly, most of the film is watching these people.
Ultimately it's less of a traditional giant monster movie and more of a conventional Hollywood thrill ride movie that just happens to revolve around a giant creature. It's good for one viewing but I have no interest in seeing it again.
P.S. And man, what an ugly monster. I'm not talking cool ugly, I'm talking ugly ugly. Sorta like Harryhausen's Ymir meets Star Wars' Rankor, done ugly.