Entirely disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (17 January 2008)

I went into this movie with no preconceptions as I hadn't heard of it, and maybe if I'd known the entirety of the storyline I would haven't given into my friend coercing me to go. The first scenes have a home video showing the burgeoning romance between Rob and Beth, this is soon taped over by the going away party for Rob, who is heading to Japan for work, and the goings on of that night.
My first thought was when the party came up, "I hope the entire movie isn't shot like this" - now remember I had no preconceptions about this movie as I had not read any reviews or even known about it before my mate asked me to go. Mix in some fairly inane dialog, some quite unlikely survival predicaments, camera shots that made me feel ill and I'm left with a movie that I would have preferred not to see.
People have been speaking of Godzilla, Gamera and other monster movies to say this has emulated them. But I disagree, the monster I thought was very similar to was the one in The Host - basically a mutated monster that needs people to feed on - although in Cloverfield the monster is a few hundred feet tall. Mix in a few aliens from Starship Troopers (which you have a fairly similar storyline of rescuing a trapped friend) and you have a rather weird movie.
Don't get me wrong if they were going for the atmosphere of the movie being a claustrophobic monster movie shot on a video camera, they achieved it. I was just disappointed in the overall storyline, video camera angles and the impossibility of it.