"Cloverfield"

It's Godzilla meets Felicity meets the Blair Witch Project. JJ Abrams is good at finding scruffy looking, but handsome, sad sack actors and really pretty actresses (see Michael Vartan, Scott Speedman, Jennifer Garner, etc.) and setting them up with awkward romantic situations (see entire run of "Felicity.") So the movie begins with Rob and Beth (both atractive), in said awkward situation, and then heads into science-fiction fantasy when Manhattan becomes invaded by Godzilla with longer arms. The tension of the buildup to the appearance of the monster is well done. The "Oh crap, oh crap, what are we going to do, we're trapped in a disaster" feeling is well done. And you do like Rob because he is trying to rescue Beth. But the narrator who carries the wobbly digital camera is really annoying after a while. I half wished the movie was just told in a conventional way so that the narrator Hud would not be necessary anymore. Movie does well with tension, but do we really care much about these characters? Not really. It feels like a director's exercise in teasing the audience more than anything else.