An extraordinary intelligent movie experience

Rating: 10/10 (1 June 2008)

Whow - This is one of the best monster/sci-fi movies i've seen in the past. I've only seen the trailer beforehand and all I knew was: big monster - large explosions - city gets destroyed. Perfect, exactly my kind of flick - no expectations, just the usual action movie.
I was so wrong.
The "first-person-view" makes the entire experience feel very realistic and believable, especially with all the cuts at the right moments and the sporadic "backflashes" to the content that was already on-tape of the camera. The constant cam shaking, especially when people start to run for their life, totally adds up to the "realism" this movie tries to screen. You wouldn't stand still to film burning cars flying through the air, would you? Every now and then, small, little things are added in the background that you hardly notice the first time watching, but they add just another layer of realism. News channels start reporting on the current events, military aircraft fly by, sirens start to announce the state of emergency etc. The producers thought of countless things that would happen in real life - and you sit there and feel like you're in the middle of the story and everything is happening just around you. right now.
The sounds fit perfectly and are very realistic, and .... there is no music. seriously, i didn't even notice there's no music until i read similar comments here on IMDb. Added on top: special effects that look so real you won't even notice they're "special effects" - and at some point you start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, this did happen for real and you're watching *real* footage from a video camera.
Finally, not everything in this movie is being explained, like, where did the monster come from or what happens after the end of the film? I feel sorry for you people who hate this movie because of this, but thats the point where you usually start using your imagination.
Summed up, this movie is so well done. Contrary to the "low quality hand-held-camera point of view"-filming style this is 100% intelligent cinema entertainment. Recommended!