Holy thread bump, Batman!
Yep, I finally got around to watching
Cloverfield recently. And... not impressed. I figured by now, with all of the hype gone and PR machine shut down, that watching it with an open mind would lead me to an enjoyable movie experience but that was not to be.
I
get what Abrams was going for, an American monster franchise along the lines of
Godzilla, but the movie failed. Part of the charm of the Toho studio films is that the monster comes off as an actual character in the story and not just a plot device. With Cloverfield it was a big monster and that's about it. Over the years Godzilla has been sometimes the hero and other times the villain but often he is shown as somewhere in-between. The films themselves are enjoyable by both young & old. Cloverfield, I think, would scare most little kids, especially with the 'ticks' that fall off of it.
Heck, I would even go as far as saying that Cloverfield is *not* about the monster at all but rather about the characters Rob & Beth.
Sorry, JJ, but if there is ever a sequel then I will not be amongst those looking forward to it.