How could a monster movie be this dull?

Rating: 5/10 (20 January 2008)

I'm always up for a great Hollywood monster movie - nail biting thrills...great special effects...heroes you can very nearly care for. Well this ain't it. The first 15 minutes is just excruciating as we are forced to 'get to know' a group of pretty awful, self satisfied 'Ys'. 15 minutes of pointless, tedious back story that could have been established in 2 minutes. And if that isn't bad enough we are made to watch it all (nauseously) via a hand-held camera. This is followed by 55 minutes watching these same people...or rather their backs...or mostly their feet shakily run from (apparent) horror to horror. The most amazing thing about this movie was how completely lack lustre and dull it is. A seemingly clever idea...but no better than any run of the mill video game out there with a 'run away from the monster premise'. We were conned by the cleverness of the 'ad'- once again no film could live up to the hype, and certainly not one with characters you really don't care about, doing REALLY stupid things for the flimsiest of reasons.