Young Hollywood's take on the Monster Genre

Rating: 5/10 (19 January 2008)

My topic alone should tell you straight away if you're going to enjoy this movie or not. There is a group of people who actually enjoy Young Hollywood and their movies, and then there are people, like myself who can't f@ckin stand 90% of the sh!t they feed us. I suppose you can guess from this last sentence what I thought of this movie. There are people in the middle ground where they tend to enjoy Y.Hollywood's flicks more or less, but I'd be the first to shake my head at their tastes....though with an open ear.
Anyways, about the movie. The story is, as you know, found footage of a group of rich, young adults who are filming the destruction of NYC. And as you know again, it's by a giant monster. But what is the movie? Just them running and running just trying to escape, which would be the smart thing to do. No, instead they are on a rescue mission to find a girlfriend, or that's the easiest way to describe their relationship. Big surprise there huh? Y. Hollywood just HAS to include a nonsensical love mission that completely endangers everyone to unimaginable heights. Sure, I'd agree that it's a bold and brave thing to do, but when the guy in charge of this rescue mission is a complete narcissist who has ONLY this one agenda on his mind, it goes from being heroic to completely out-of-line and (insert negative word). How many times do you have to scream his name in his face for him to even glimpse at you?? But he gets away with it. The others obviously don't really care about living that much and I guess are in love with Beth as much as he is. Or do they just love this Hero so much that they'd follow him to the depths of hell? The whole rescue mission really doesn't even pay off very well. The actors are you're typical WB/FOX type pretties, and mixed with that typical Hollywood acting you're also given a very, very Y.Hollywood screenplay. If any of you are even slightly aware of the route Y.Hollywood has taken with humor, you'd know that the coolest humor at the moment is the type of humor the Fat Jewish Kid in Superbad delivers. I enjoyed Superbad by the way. Anyways, the actor using the camera delivers lines incredibly similar to the Fat Kid in Superbad. Though he did sound like Jake Busey....which ain't bad. The humor is very weak and predictable and just lame. But hey, it has it's fans, I'm just not one of them. I can go on and on about how pathetic this group of friends are, but maybe that was what the writer was trying to get across. How self-obsession still remains prevalent even when sh!t hits the fan. They should have dropped that love story right off the bat, but what do you expect from the creators of Felicity.
Getting to the monster. It's cool. It's not bad. But it's a TOTAL rip-off of the PS3 launch title Resistance: Fall of Man. Go ahead, look up the game, and look at the creature designs. The resemblance is uncanny, and if you know of the game, when seeing the monster(s) for the first time, the surprise is nothing of a surprise. But, if you're not like me, you should enjoy the way it looks, it's unique, right Insomniac games? But I do still have another issue related to the Monster. The monster drops little creatures that are about the size of large Capibaras (ha!). Why do all monster movies these days have to include little creatures? Yeah I get that it's heightens the danger factor, but it's officially getting old, and it's pretty lame thinking. Creativity in Y.Hollywood is crap.
And for people looking for scares, no, there are zero genuine scares. There are jump scenes, which use the played out formula combining Incredibly Quick Visuals mixed with Sudden Loud Music/Sound Effects. And even when they're in a tunnel that's pitch dark, you still see the scares coming a mile away. "I can't see!" "Oh it has Night Vision, here let me help you." Okay, what happens when they turn on the night vision? Yep.
The only good aspects to this movie are the impressive visuals, cool monster *ahem*, and when the monster is on screen the movie actually works very well. But there is far, far too much Y.Hollywood bullcrap and no way near enough Monster. This is just more over-hyped Hollywood sh!t, that fails to deliver. But hell, if you do enjoy Y.Hollywood flicks, this movie will be you're film of the year. It's got everything you want, the pretty faces, the lame script, the side story of love....ugh, what a piece of crap. 4.5 outta 10