well-done and absorbing

Rating: 7/10 (3 May 2008)

If we start with the asumption that this is an entertainment, a pleasant and aborbing way to spent about 2 hours, Cloverfield succeeds brilliantly.
There is even some connection with the characters--and this is good, since the monster is seldom in full view, but its constant threat permeates the reality of the character.s.
One very interesti0ng aspect of the film is that it is so generationally biased. The group of characters are young professionals in their 20s-30s, and they are the terminally hip and self-absorbed Gen Y stereo types. Very inane and self-centered.
However, when the crisis comes, some of these characters grow to face the challenge, and they do so in a believable and positive way.
There are fairly major logical incongruities that are not merely nit-picking. For example, at one point, in view from a helicopter taking the main characters to safety, the monster shambles well below the POV. Perhaps 1000 feet below.
The monster is bombed by a B-2, and in the ensuing dust we are led to think that maybe--just maybe--this may have destroyed or injured the monster.
But no! The monster's jaws leap from the dust cloud to pluck the helicopter, previously far, far above any height that the creature could have reached from any previous indication of size, or even leaping ability. And the *reason* that this is written into the script, as far as I can tell, is to keep the POV in contact with the monster, for it the helicopter had gotten away, that would be the end of the video POV.
But all in all, it was very good, indeed!