Weak

Rating: 3/10 (1 February 2008)

First thing to mention: I didn't have any clue what this whole movie is all about (just had seen that one "official" trailer with the liberty statues head on the ground). And I forced myself not to search for any details on the web; just to keep it captivating.
OK, I guess there are more than enough basic summaries of this movie so I will try to focus on the main debacle. The first 20 minutes of this 75 minutes "short film" are simply boring, needless and trashy. Just like watching some c-class teeny-soap on TV. The rest is a bit better - but not much. Apart from the bugging hand-camera filming style the movie has got almost NO storyline at all. Sure, you walk along with those flat and unispiredly tinkered together characters but - imho this movie wouldn't be any better or worse if you'd simply see some unintroduced people being smashed around. It somehow just doesn't matter.
The visual effects seem to be mid-level "industry standard" and the few good shots are too short and nearly unrecognizable due to the always shaking and zooming camera. Altogether you only get a few seconds of good CG during the whole picture. It's really that bad! There are some nice visual ideas... but as they are barely seen, you might find more interesting stuff while randomly visiting some visual artists personal websites on the internet.
If you certainly want to go to the theatre and see a monster movie, go and see Stephen Kings "The Mist" which is at least much much better than this piece of expensive, visual and intellectual nausea. Or go and get "The Host" on DVD which also easily outclasses the poor "Cloverfield". So don't get too much carried away by that crappy "viral campaign" ruckus made to promote this brainless movie. It might be OK on DVD to bridge some very boring hours at home but definitely not worth going to a cinema to see it.
Sorry for my bad English.
Regards, Onur Pekdemir