WOW....I have never seen such a horrific movie!

Rating: 1/10 (28 August 2013)

Told through a hand held camera, the movie uses the same story telling technique as the Blair Witch Project - just not as well. While the first few moments of explosions and mystery are engaging the movie soon begins to drag, as a band of friends makes their way uptown to rescue the leading man's girlfriend. On their odyssey they soon come face to face with the marauding leviathan who in the first few scenes shows it's disdain for the statue of liberty by decapitating her and tossing her head right at our gang's feet (was it the huddle masses bit?), eventually forcing our gang underground into a subway station for cover. Predictably, walking uptown through the train tracks they're attacked by the monster's bug like spawn, which oddly enough resemble the creatures in Aliens. Of course one of the gang is bitten only to soon feel sick and explode in a burst of blood behind white sheets in a makeshift hospital, as something pops out of her. Where is commander Ripley now? After what seems like an eternity that makes actual NYC midtown rush-hour traffic look like the autobahn they make it up to midtown only to find the missing girlfriend's building drunkenly slumped over like the leaning tower of Pisa against another building. Jumping from one roof to another then back again with the skill of mountain goats they miraculously rescue the half conscious girlfriend then evacuate in a military helicopter. As the copter soars over the monster a bomber overhead makes a dead on strike only to anger it and cause it to swat the copter down into central park... Even Godzilla was killed by a missiles after getting tangled up in Brooklyn Bridge. The central characters themselves come across as selfish, unfeeling, pretentious and narcissistic. As members die they quickly move beyond it accepting it as coldly as a reality show contestant. Except for the bizarre pigheaded stand the troop takes to rescue one single person while putting everyone else in mortal jeopardy, they're completely devoid of empathy for anyone else around them including each other. Yuk.
This is one of the worst sci-fi movies and should be B - no, a D movie, if that. It's derivative - Blair Witch meets Blahhhh. At least other films, even the campy Godzilla movies of yesteryear tried to explain the why the monsters exist (atomic age etc), and what could kill them. The only thing we know for sure is Cloverfield hates the Manhattan skyline. The one saving point is that everyone dies at the end including the obnoxious filmmaker who's partially eaten by Clover - though she doesn't even finish her meal - I guess it can't stomach him either. I can't understand why it got so many stars except movie buffs/makers like the idea of a movie maker along with his hand-held camera as story teller.
The South Park parody of Cloverfield, the "Pandemic" episode, with its giant guinea pigs and flute bands was eminently more entertaining, plus it has a story line with reason, and Randy's wife finally takes away his camera. I wish someone had taken away Hud's camera at the very beginning.