Now all in all, its a pretty clever idea. It starts out with somebody reviewing a videotape. Basically you're watching the story and the characters unfold via the tape. Its basically about this dude named Rob who is getting ready to go to Japan to be a vice president for a company and his brother Jason and his friends Hud and Jason's fine azz girlfriend Lily are throwing him a party. The camera is held most of the time by Hud but you do get to see him and you hear him a lot. Hud has a crush on this chick named Marlena who is at the party. Rob's ex-"best friend" Beth shows up at the party and you found out that the very first scene in the opening is where Beth and Rob's friendship became a secret romance. There is drama and Beth and Rob argue while Hud keeps trying to get in Marlena's face but she ain't thinking about his azz. The dumb all very 90210 until the first explosion hits. Everybody at the party is shook and ~love~ jumps off from there. Buildings fall, everyone has already seen what happens to the head of the statue of liberty, and people run. From here on out, it becomes about these six people trying to survive and understand what's going on in all of the confusion. The movie is on some "creature that ate New York" type of crap and you basically watch crap get F-up.
The whole time, you are immersed in the action and the suspense. Its a short movie - I think its an hour and ten minutes - but it feels longer. The effects and the destruction is off the chain realistic! I was offended that aside from the Asian chick at the party, two brothas at the party and Lily (yes, I counted) the first time you see people of color in NY are when a pawn shop is getting looted. (F!- you Matt Reeves!)
Now, I am going to reveal two things. One is a key to the whole movie and you will most likely not catch it. It is the reason that the government was reviewing the tape. Even I didn't catch it at first. Before I get to that, I am going to answer the question that so many people have and I'm doing it not to spoil the movie but because it doesn't matter. Is the creature Godzilla? NO. IT IS NOT GODZILLA. Its nothing you have seen in any other movie. Now for the coup de gras - throughout the movie, people are wondering where the creature came from and what it is. There are theories thrown around that it came from the sea. At the end of the tape, if you should go see, download or buy a bootleg of this movie, pay attention to the beach shot at the end. In the right hand corner, YOU WILL SEE SOMETHING THAT ANSWERS THAT QUESTION. You can't miss the ending scene if you want to know the answer.
With all that being said, I cannot recommend this movie. YEP, YOU HEARD ME.
I'm THUMBS DOWNING THIS!
Its not the story - it was good.
Its not the suspense and action - it was great.
Its not the acting - they did pretty decently for the roles they were handed.
ITS THE GAWD-**** CAMERAWORK!
It was straight F-ed! The whole movie is on some handycam type ~crap~. The camera has a light on it, night vision on it but no steady shot button? WTF? Hell The WHOLE movie is shaky and uneven. If those 10-15 minutes of shaky cam in the Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum bothered you, YOU WILL HATE THIS WHOLE MOVIE. Some people walked out. It can give you motion sickness. ~love~ even gave me a headache. If ever there was anything overdone, it was the shakiness of the camera. That made me hate this movie. I can't honestly recommend it because of the camera work. A lot of other people hated it for that, too. F a matinee, trash the theater, DOWNLOAD THIS sucker!
Wait until there is a TS or r5 or screener copy, though because you need to see a clear copy, not a CAM shot or you won't be able to keep up because of the destruction that takes place combined with the shaky cam ~love~. I went in pumped full of a year of promotion and excited to see this flick. I left with an intense headache and pissed off about the camera. The upside was seeing New York get trashed up.
I wonder when they are going to make a flick where L.A. gets f-ed up like that? Hopefully soon. You know what else is f-ed up? The camera work in this movie. Handycam ~love~ doesn't work as well on a grand scale. It worked for the Blair Witch Project because the camera didn't shake the whole time and there was less to focus on. I hope nobody else tries this ~love~ EVER AGAIN in this way. I give it a FAIL.
What do you think it is?
