Monster (2008)

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Its obvious this was just a rip off of the film "Cloverfield" but its not the worst thing I've ever seen. Some of the acting is convincing while some of it is incredibly bad. One thing I've noticed? Apparently when an entire room full of people scream at you to turn off a camera, you're supposed to ignore them. One thing that infuriates me is that a classic "ROOOOOOOAR" is heard throughout the city, and the 2 american girls are still scratching their heads saying "What's with all the earthquakes?". Its pretty ridiculous. Not to mention my least favorite part? You never really see much of the monster, only really what you would expect given the cover art of the DVD. This is another one of those films that proves how Americans are so much different from the Japanese and seem a lot more crude and disrespectful, but I won't get into all that. Bottom line the movie was, I suppose decent, and had an interesting story line, it just wasn't all that impressive.

Despite it being from the notorious The Asylum, there was something about the idea that intrigued me into seeing Monster. Unfortunately the execution is just diabolical. If there is one redeeming quality it is the cute and decent turn from Erin Evans. That however is it. The fact that it looks cheap doesn't help matters in the slightest, the effects are artificial and overused and the scenery is dully lit, but the worst asset was by far the camera work. The hand-held camera technique I am not a fan of, at times it is effective, but it wasn't here, not only because it gave you a seasick notion but it was also used far too much. The script feels constantly stilted and aimless, and the characters have no likability or credibility. The title monster is incredibly bland to the point of being nondescript, and the acting with the exception of Evans doesn't feel like acting, nobody seemed to be scared or even bothered about their surroundings and predicaments. The story is the worst asset, with sluggish pacing, very thin, repetitive and extremely dull storytelling, an ending that is so abrupt that you swear the film wasn't even resolved and many ridiculous scenes like with the fireballs and a line about an earthquake and then you hear a distinct roar afterwards. Overall, Monster is awful and if it didn't have Evans it would have been irredeemable. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Okay maybe this is not a rip-off of Cloverfield, and maybe I should not have watched it a few days after said movie. But still, Monster is almost exactly the same with chicks (you could sell anything with chicks, right?), without a decent plot, acting, and sadly, without a monster.We get two girls who are in Japan to make a documentary, when Tokyo is hit by an earthquake. And this is when the movie starts to get irreversibly bad and annoying. Because the two girls, however cute they may be, just cannot seem to use the camera. In the middle of a monster attack, *everything* is filmed, except for what is actually happening. When our heroines are staring with their jaws dropped at something supposedly terrible, the camera is well... showing them, their jaws dropped, staring. Then cut, or artifacts on the film (at every 5 seconds, or when something interesting is about to happen), and we go to the next scene. Rinse and repeat. In the end, we are given 90 minutes of artifacts, girls being scared and talking nonsense, running somewhere (filming each other's legs in the process), and just hanging out in Tokyo, obviously afraid of some tentacle monster that they always fail to capture with the camera.Besides of not being able to make a point (it is hard when you point the camera at your sister instead of at whatever is happening around you), the movie fails to convey a sense of plot. We know where the girls are trying to go, but we just do not care if they ever get there, or what happens if they do. There is simply no drama, no excitement, mostly due to the bad use of camera, and the long talky scenes, and short scary ones (usually cut by artifacts, or simply, darkness).I can't help but to compare this movie to Cloverfield, where you got a monster, and after some time, you actually got interested in where the group is going, and in the end, you cared. Monster could have been a great movie, even without showing the monster, if it manages to make you feel for the girls, but it sadly fails. It is not simply bad, but also an uninteresting movie.

Perhaps one of you, eloquent commentators, could explain how "Monster" (on the market since January 18, 2008) can be a knockoff of "Cloverfield" (on the screen since January 16, 2008)? A great show of clairvoyance or a masterpiece of film-making and marketing? There are quite a few flaws in the movie (like why the recording on the first cassettes was OK and the distorted picture/sound effects appear at the same time the monster does - if the cassettes were found later together, damaged), but they are their own flaws. Oh, and stop wondering how one camera battery could hold for so long - the girls had a few batteries, as they indicate themselves at one point.