A fresh idea executed well

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2008)

Well, this is my first review, so go easy on me.
I had my doubts about this movie, I don't know the director or any of the actors, it only has 30 million dollar budget and no real synopsis. Have to say, this is the first movie I went and watch driven by hype only, and in some ways I think it did live up to its hype.
The good parts: Let's face it, we go to watch this movie to see a giant monster wrecks Manhattan, so I wouldn't go too far about the plot. The movie is about a rescue and escape, and that's all I'm going to say about it. It's a decent plot that drives the movie, at times it can be pretty stupid but the actors did well for this kind of movie.
So they promised us a giant monster. Many of us, me included, thought that due to its small budget, it will only appear briefly at the end of the movie. Well turns out this is not the case, the monster appeared early and often in the first 30 minutes, albeit only glimpses of it, around 40 minutes into the movie, we get to see it face-to-face. It's early appearance was satisfying considering all the hype and mystery about the monster's appearance. But most importantly, in the third act, we get to see the monster as a whole, and how did the filmmaker executed this with such a small budget? I'm a 3D animator myself, so I know quality special effects when I see one, for a 30 million dollar movie (if this is true), the special effects look proper and very well made. This can be attributed to the whole movie taking place in the dark and most of the special effects shot are always full of movements and quite short, with an exception for a single one: the statue of liberty's head scene, it actually looks quite cheap, fortunately when it comes to the scary stuffs, this movie done all-right.
The bad part: The origin of the monster is not quite explained thoroughly even until the end of the movie. This is, because the entire movie is told from a first person perspective of the protagonists. This way the whole movie is constrained only to its protagonists fight for rescue and survival, so, no subplot about a scientist with answers like in other monster movies. The origin however is explained only by a single split second scene at the end, blink and you'll miss it.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but just like "I am Legend", i feel that the third act kinda collapsed. The concept's quite fresh, Hollywood has not many giant monster movies and after the disastrous attempt on adapting Godzilla in 1998, thanks to J.J. Abrams for producing this movie. I would like to see more of this franchise, too many questions are still unanswered, maybe a sequel with a bigger budget and a different narrative. But for now, this is a very good start.