"Blair Witch" meets "Godzilla"

Rating: 1/10 (18 January 2008)

While watching "Cloverfield", it's easy to see "Godzilla" meets "The Blair Witch Project" -- except you can't help but think to yourself very early on in this sci-fi fantasy -- "at least "Blair Witch" was somewhat plausible." Like "Blair Witch", "Cloverfield" is a supposed first-hand documentary of some horrendous -- if not outlandishly unbelievable -- events happening to a group of young (20-something), single friends one dark and scary night. Unlike "Blair", however, the scariness takes place in the relatively safe neighborhoods of Manhattan, instead of the campground-backpacking wilderness of Maryland. Unlike its predecessor,"Cloverfield" loses much of its would-be appeal when the "videotape" being shot by the group shows up on the big screen as nothing more than a badly-shot movie, ala "NYPD Blue" and its (at the time) ground-breaking "move all over the place" camera shots. Honestly -- this movie was so bad, my wife and I actually got free passes from the theater for a future flick. Wait for the video -- and you may even want to think twice about that.