Bland yuppie characters don't make me care much that they might die. But the monster is scary!

Rating: 7/10 (20 January 2008)

I've been thinking of this movie as the Blair Godzilla Project for months now, and I was pretty much entirely correct on what to expect. It's a good concept. I mean, everyone decided to hate The Blair Witch Project after it opened wide, but it was an excellent idea, and an effective film. It didn't work more than once, but that first time packed quite a wallop (for me at least). Cloverfield has the same flaws as that film. You spend a lot of time wondering why the character with the camera wouldn't at least set the camera aside some of the time (they do attempt to make it more believable than BWP did, but it's not always convincing). Also as in BWP, the characters are bland, vapid and not much worth caring about. They're all very TV-style good looking (in fact, most everyone involved with the movie came from that medium), and you'd certainly stare at the girls' butts if you saw them on the street. But on TV or in the movies, they're average. Does any real-life woman actually find the scruffy, unshaven look sexy? Hollywood has been shoving that look upon us for years now, and I don't think I've ever known of a female who wants her face ground down by stubble every time she gets close to her guy. Two of the male characters look so much alike I was relieved when one of them bit the dust. At least I wouldn't be confused anymore. But, oh yeah, there's a monster. And it's pretty scary. And the filmmakers are smart enough to hold back on what you see (although I should mention that Korean director Bong Joon-Ho made a much better monster movie last year in which the monster is seen in toto almost immediately). All in all, Cloverfield is a moderately entertaining monster movie. If you didn't like The Blair Witch Project, I would definitely avoid it. But if you did like BWP, and like Godzilla, it's not a bad way to spend 90 minutes. Make sure, if you do see it, to sit through the credits sequence. There's a lot of buzz about an impossible-to-hear mumble that is audible right before the studio logo comes up, but the real reason to stick around is to hear Michael Giacchino's bombastic and hilariously unnecessary closing overture and what it's called. It makes the movie.