Rating of
2/4
Not Worth The Hype, But Worth a Look
Unknown - wrote on 01/22/16
Normally, I wouldn't pass up a movie such as this. I skipped the theater experience because of the overhype marketing machine of mysteriously vague trailers that promised something that many of my friends said it didn't deliver on. After many years of forgetting this film entirely, I've finally seen it. And I have to say that while it wasn't worth the hype, it was certainly not in any way a bad movie and it still delivered on what it set out to do. The marketing never steered us in a certain direction. It only teased us with the unknown. This was never meant to be a crazy 'Godzilla' type of monster film. It's intent was to inject something new into the 'found-footage' genre through the use of a giant creature wrecking havoc in New York City. As far as the filming format is concerned, I completely bought into the handheld camera angle, the characters, and the situation. All of the main cast are pretty good. Their characters are engaging and likable. We get a solid introduction to them all which leads us to the catastrophe at hand fairly quickly. The whole incident feels close to what a real disaster of this scale would seem like. Being in the ground perspective of the common folk adds danger and excitement. Everything moves along fast. Somewhere in the second half illogical moments rear themselves into light, making character choices and deaths and the overall resolution kind of lackluster. The creature itself isn't distinctly memorable. Hell, it's 'minions' (of sort) are more memorable. The excitement dissipated rapidly in the third act. I was invested strongly up until that point. Oh, and the handheld shakiness never bothered me. I found it to be reasonable to the story, but never hard to follow one bit. Admired the execution, just let down by the storytelling.
