Eh. It was not worth my money.

Rating: 5/10 (26 January 2008)

I'm currently giving this movie 5 stars. Why? Because right now, it's apparently the hottest movie around; That is, until next week when it drops to the bottom of the box office in favor of a far duller ( yes, it's possible) and violent film.
They have been calling this movie " A modern American monster" and are praising JJ as if he had done something brand new and brilliant. To say that this movie touches upon originality and lives up to it's hype is as to say "The Holocaust Never Happened." I'd give this movie far more credit if it was something new, rather than something old from another country.
Frankly, I never cared for this movie to begin with and after seeing it and judging it fairly; I figured, the actual hype for the movie was better than the actual movie. Hundreds of youtube videos people posted simply because they were greedy for what was considered " The only American monster", so what is Mothman and the Flatlands Creature? Chopped liver? It's as people forgot about all the OTHER creature features released in the last 8 years. It takes a particularly bland film to win the praise that so many other decent films were denied simply because "We weren't interested". I love how that works.
That whole camcorder thing got on my nerves after a while. After first encountering it in the Blair Witch Project, then in the infinite number of "Military Projects Gone Wrong, Special Ops team gets sent in and decimated by said project and it's caught on their camera" movies and video games. So, after so much exposure you'd understand why I'd be opposed to seeing it again.
The only thing worth watching this movie for is the character development. Without spoiling the actual movie,the drama is comparable to Return of the Living Dead, one of my favorite movies. So, it's pretty much the only thing worth sitting through, either a bootleg version or in a theater. Your choice, but I doubt you'll watch it again, unlike RotLD. The "monster", you know the selling point of Cloverfield? Isn't any scarier or interesting than the giant high level monster in a generic video game. Actually, I've seen scarier monsters in videogames such as Shadow Hearts Series or the Silent Hill Series. Frankly, the debates on what the monster looked like were far more entertaining than the actual monster itself. Between the countless false images, lions, megazords, rick rolls and Dr. Wily himself, the actual monster is just a disappointment.
All and all, this is a good movie for the casual movie goer. For people looking for a hardcore ,dedicated creature feature/ monster movie, you're better off using the money to complete your collection of better films.