Big monster, cool CGI, terrible plot..

Rating: 5/10 (8 March 2010)

First of all, it's not scary. A monster 30 stories tall destroying Manhattan is supposed to be a scary deal. But "Cloverfield" sidesteps that challenge and opts for an easier way out. It makes it look cool. You'll watch this movie, go home, have dinner, go to sleep, wake up the next morning and go to work, and before you know, a whole lifetime will pass without your thinking about it for once. While watching, you might (might, j-u-s-t might) enjoy it, but there's nothing in this movie that you'll take home with you. Least of all a good scare.
The story? Have you seen "Godzilla"? That's pretty much it. Huge monster comes out of the ocean and into Manhattan (oh no, not Manhattan again!), and goes on a building-tumbling rampage. Meanwhile, the military tries to bring it down with everything they've got (of course, to no avail). Throw into this your protagonists, who are caught in middle and are trying to escape, and there you have it! The use of shaky cams, however, brings a new perspective into films like these. Starting from the path-breaking "Blair Witch Project" to the recent "Rec", shaky cams have been used to create a sense of reality in movies, and thus, to intensify scares. The simultaneous use of hand-held camera and (extremely good) CGI is a rarity and works very, very well for this movie. Especially the scene of the carpet-bombing by the B-2 Spirit is really good. "Cloverfield" also follows (at least for the first half-hour) the trend of not showing the entity that creates the mayhem. After that the director realized this is not the kind of film where you don't show the creature, the creature IS your USP. So, out came Clover. Anyway, nice try.
Now let me come to the bad things. First, the (non-existent) script. Only one example will suffice. The plot line demands that the characters be trapped inside Manhattan. How to do that? Here's how – the main protagonist (Rob) must rescue his girlfriend who is trapped in her house. To do this, he (and three of his friends, who loyally follow him around) must get to the center of the town (ground zero for monster activity), climb to the 49th floor of a building that is slumped onto another building (physics be damned!), and rescue his girl who has been impaled by a steel rod through the chest! Seems believable? Hell, yeah! To add to this, the girl, shortly after being removed from the rod, does a 100 m sprint leaving her friends behind. You go girl! I know I'm supposed to suspend some disbelief. But this much?? And second, there's the acting. In a movie like this, there should be no "acting" ("Blair witch" and "Rec" are perfect examples). But "acting" there is, and pretty dumb, too. Dialogues seemed non-spontaneous and scripted, expressions were often strained. If you want to make a movie "realistic", then a shaky cam is not enough. You have to have good "non-actors". This, it didn't have.
Overall, "Cloverfield" would pass for a single viewing. Nothing more. Don't expect too much, and you'll be fine.