Cloverfield

After suffering through the banal party scene at the beginning, the remaining 90 minutes tried to compensate, and may have even succeeded. This one was designed to appeal to the head, then the occipital lobe, and through those pathways it takes aim at the heart. Even so, it asks a lot, and I suspect most will continue the watch, rinse, repeat cycle suitable for the genre. Caution: Do not taunt, roll, bounce, or underestimate Happy Fun Cloverfield.

I was not terrified. In fact, I only mildly cared for the protagonists. Until about half way through they might as well have been robots. It seemed more like an objective documentary delivering both sides of the story without bias. "See. Here's what happened. What'd'ya think?"

Save the indiscriminate human slaughter, I would have appreciated hearing the building-smashing reptile's case. I mean, come on, you don't just rip down buildings for nothing. Glass shards are painful and dangerous, even if civilians are tasty.

Besides, do we really need nothing more than a figure resembling a human, a featherless biped, to verify a character is indeed human? This is fiction. And, most of the characters lacked all characteristics we might identify as "human" (all the decent ones anyway).

SPOILER ALERT!

If you have not seen the movie, watch it. Come back after...it's worth it.
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This movie is for everyone. If you don't catch the subtle subversiveness you still enjoy the sensational action and masterful CGI. Here's why I think this one stands out...

• Empathy for most of the humanoid characters is tempered so we can pay attention to other things.
  
• One of the first shocking events is the head of the Statue of Liberty being used as a weapon of mass destruction.
  
• The monster is invincible. (Yes, the monster is invincible).
  
• We only see the monster(s) killing "innocent" civilians (humanoids).
  
• The "you gonna die" character is chewed alive by the monster, then spit out. Apparently killed from the impact after falling. Fat, drunk, and stupid apparently doesn't taste very good.
• The monster does, however, like to eat some people (as we learn early after its arrival).
• The lovers are not killed by the monster, but instead by a bomb intended to kill the monster.

Having watched politics for the last year or so I consider this a documentary thinly veiled as a horror flick. I guess the question is: Given a saddle and some spurs should we seat ourselves atop the raging monster or take our chances under the bridge?