50 Years later We Make A Godzilla Film?

Rating: 3/10 (20 January 2008)

I gave this movie a three because the story of Rob and Beth was somewhat compelling. J.J. Abrams admitted that he conceived of the movie while visiting a toy store in Japan with his son and seeing all the Godzilla toys. The decapitated Statue of Liberty was taken from the 1981 film poster "Escape from New York". The title of the film, Cloverfield, is taken from the exit on the Santa Monica Freeway near Abrams office.
Anyway, you can barely see the monster. In typical "Lost" fashion, the menace is always unseen.
Unlike the massive Japanese military response to Godzilla in the 1954 movie, the US military reaction was abysmal against the attacking monster in Cloverfield. One soldier proclaims, "we're not winning..."(Could this be a reference to our present situation in Iraq and Afghanistan?)
The shaking camera, home-video style of filming just didn't work for me. It was amateurish and detracted from the movie. You could have used HVX 200's and been more creative with the camera angles.
In Godzilla we know that the monster is a mutation created by US nuclear tests in the Pacific in late 1940's and early 1950's. In Cloverfield we are not told what this monster is, where he (or she) comes from, or why it decides to attack Manhattan.
Godzilla destroys Tokyo only nine years after the city was actually reduced to cinders by massive US incendiary bombing raids. The Cloverfield monster brings down buildings and bridges, with huge dust clouds and fleeing humanity reminiscent of 9/11. It's been nearly eight years.
Many Japanese viewed Godzilla metaphorically, as the unbeatable monster (the Americans) who bombed Tokyo to the ground, in retaliation for the massacres and atrocities committed by their militaristic government. By 1954 the Japanese are aware of the holocaust they committed in China and their inhumane treatment of prisoners of war. Guilt-ridden they flock to see a monster destroy their beloved city. What is the real monster Abrams created to destroy Manhattan? And are Americans stampeding to see this movie based on their own guilt?
If you are buoyed by the hype, or burdened with guilt, then go and see this movie. If not, then wait until it comes out on DVD.