Went to see Cloverfield this weekend.

What I expected: A cool, maybe kinda scary, fun roller-coaster-ride monster movie.

What I got: A headache from too much shaky-cam following stupid people through New York.

Before I get a bunch of people telling me I missed the point, let me stem the tide: I got it. I mean, I get the whole “point of view” thing and how the interesting bit was that rather than tell the monster movie story from an omniscient perspective they drilled down and got it from a ‘new and different” perspective - that of victims. I get it.

That doesn’t make it good.

Really, I think the shaky-cam thing got old. Let’s ignore the “but that’s the point” argument. I’ve never seen home movies as ridiculously shaky as what they showed. Even the stuff at the beginning, when they weren’t being chased by the monster, was shakier than any home movie I’ve ever seen. By the end of the movie, Jenn couldn’t even watch it - she had to close her eyes and just listen because it was far, far more jarring than even Blair Witch (which also sucked).

Oh, and if you’re being chased by a giant monster and buildings are falling all around you and you happen to drop the camera, are you going to go back and pick it up? Further, are you going to run around with it at eye level the whole time? Hell, no. You’re going to throw the camera at the monster chasing you and you’re going to high-tail it out of there.

Did I mention the thing pretty much just ended, without any resolution to what happened to the monster? Did it die? Did it live? We don’t know.

There were really only three parts I dug about it (and, technically, these are spoilers, but you’re going to be smart and save your money, right?):

1. The part where the stealth bombers show up to lay waste on the monster.
2. The part where the girl explodes after getting bitten.
3. The fact that little mini-creatures get dropped off the one big creature. That shit creeped me out.

Other than that, lame, lame, lame. I wanted less of the morons running around the city and more of the military getting medieval on the monster. I wanted less shaky cam and more ability to actually see what was going on.

Save your money. Or, better, go see Juno. That movie was great.