Not your average monster movie

Rating: 9/10 (21 January 2008)

I had high doubts of this movie being worth while. The first thing that came to mind was the movie BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (which was nothing but filmed crap with three young adults screaming at each other in the middle of the woods). However, when I walked in, my eyes stayed glued to the screen.
From the large "earthquake" to the complete wipe out of Manhattan, I was amazed. The only part that really made me think of these people as "stupid" was trying to go back to the middle of Manhattan through the subway tunnel. HELLO?! dark tunnel + scary monster = VERY BAD SITUATION! I still think it's unbelievable that a hand held camera was able to record 24 hrs. worth of footage on one disk and battery. On BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, they had equipment with them to keep camera's charged. Back on subject, I do give credit for the monster. My main concern was is this monster going to be a cheap rip off of Godzilla. It wasn't, thank God.
I liked the style of how close the buildings were together and the sense of there was no where to hide. Especially how the sense of panic was thick in the atmosphere. I felt a sense of panic at times whenever the monster was shown in any scene. They do leave the ending open, but you can pretty much conclude that Manhattan is gone. The small love story that went on I thought was very touching. At first, I felt it was unneeded, but as the movie continued, I was glad that a love story was in-compassed within this.
I will say, however, that making Hud, the camera man, have a sense of humor was a very good element to add into the movie. It really lightened up the mood in some very dark and tense situations. The only thing that was disappointing was that only one person, Lilly, survived from the group of friends documenting this whole situation. I wanted Hud to live, but, ya know.
So if you have any doubts towards this movie, I promise you, there will be no disappointments. It was amazing and worth every penny. I even went to watch it a second time because there were some things I missed the first time watching it.