... and they're like "It's bigger than yours?"
Damn right, it's bigger than yours.
He could eat you, if you extra-large.

ANYWAYS:
I just got home from seeing Cloverfield. A movie that has received a broad range of reviews from "meh" to "don't miss it", and currently retains a 6.1 average score on Metacritic. As far as I'm concerned: don't listen to the mainstream media reviews. Reason being that at least half of them want everything to be completely professional, and see the "shakycam" as an obstacle more than anything.

The Review
Foreword:
I'm sure you've all heard this word in association with the movie more than once, but it's really the best word one could use to describe the experience: Intense. There was not a moment in this film where the characters or situations seemed at all unbelievable. The shakycam style helped to push into your mind that these were real people. They weren't professional cameramen. They were everyday people like you and me. What made the whole thing even more enjoyable was that the camera was being handled the entire time by Hud; the lovable bumbling best friend of Rob: a 20-something year old with a mixed-up love life who just scored a big deal with a Japanese company. It's debatable who the main character really is, as the movie is really about Rob's personal life and the major losses he overcomes, which in turn seem to drive him even harder to save the someone he truly loves. However, you'll spend the majority of your time living through Hud's eyes, wherein you'll see just what kind of mess he is.

The plot:
Movies.com says it best.

"Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) has just gotten a new job, except he's going to have to move from NYC to Tokyo to take it. On the eve of his departure, Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel) throws a surprise going-away party that's interrupted when a giant monster attacks the city. Receiving a panicked phone call from his ex-girlfriend Beth (Odette Yustman), Rob races through the destruction with several of his friends to save her."

What's the big deal?:
The major comparison being drawn is Godzilla meets Blair Witch. Honestly I never cared for any of the Blair Witch movies. I didn't feel like I could connect with the characters, nor did I really care when something happened to them. Cloverfield does a massive overhaul to the shakycam perspective by throwing in lovable characters and giving them each their own individual character. Marlena is heavily sarcastic. Hud is excitable and funny. Lily is the innocent, trusting one. Rob is courageous and charismatic, and Beth is loving and also charismatic (also: hot).

Another piece of what ties you to the characters is that this is all being filmed over an old tape. So every so often you'll get tidbits of a video from Rob's past that explain a lot of missing pieces at the beginning of the movie, and help you see Rob's motivation. The miniature clips are silly and touching.

The visual effects in this movie really surpass most of what I've seen in any hollywood production. It's hard enough to map an effect to a steadycam. It's really impressive to me that they were able to do so much with the camera in constant motion. Everything looks completely awesome and damn-near real.

Presentation-wise I couldn't imagine the movie any other way. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll gawk and go googly-eyed. The presentation is never broken. You'll always have that feeling that you're reliving the horrible day that a small group of friends went through, even if you keep telling yourself "It's not real". They were even thorough enough to treat the credits like they were part of the film in some respect (no loud rock? CRAZY!!!). It's somewhat surreal to walk out of the movie theater after Cloverfield and back into the real world. Kind of a "cool... nothing's exploded..." feeling. :P

FINISH UP ALREADY:
Take my babblings as you will. I'm no journalist and really just type what I think as the points cross my mind. But with all I've said, accept that I give Cloverfield a way solid 9.5 out of 10 (equivalent to 4.75 Dolphins out of 5. AMAZING)

This is not a movie you will soon forget.