[jekylljuice]

Cloverfield

I just got back from seeing this for the first time, having shyed away from all the hype during its rampancy earlier this year. And what can I say? I wasn't wild about it. Beyond the Blair Witch Project-esque gimmick of the entire film being shown from the point of view of a handful of bystanders who just happened to have a camera rolling at the time, the story didn't really feel like it had very much to sustain itself. There were a small handful of shocks here and there, but I found the characters to be a bit flat and unlikeable, and the storyline perhaps a tad flimsy. Maybe I'd have appreciated it more if I had more of an appetite for the whole skycraper-stomping monster movie genre in general, but I'm afraid I don't. On the plus side, the ending was somewhat refreshing, I quite liked the occasional interludes of the previous, immensely more tranquil film on the video, and the whole thing was mercifully short. I don't think I could really have taken it had it gone on for very much longer than an hour and a half. Not because I'm prone to motion sickness or anything like that, but because I was starting to find it a bit frustrating.