For many months, people have anxiously awaited Cloverfield... apparently the preview screening had people searched for recording equipment and people roving the aisles with night vision equipment. All suitably in line with the viral campaign that got the hype for this film sky high.

In retrospect, it's fairly obvious that the reason for this secrecy was for a single reason... they didn't want people to realise that it was rubbish. Although, that probably shouldn't come as a surprise when it's produced by the man behind Lost and Alias... It's been said already but bears saying again - this film can be summed up in the following sentence - Godzilla meets Blair Witch.

It really is that simple. Actually, to be fair - The Blair Witch Project was better because it was an original concept at the time... and of course, used two cameras and had the people using said cameras for a reason - that reason being they were making a documentary. In Cloverfield, it doesn't really make much sense... Ok, the guy is videoing the party... I'm fairly sure that when it comes down to a life and death situation - you don't keep that camera rolling regardless... you drop it and get the hell out of there. Perhaps it's conceivable that you'd want to document the Godzilla wannabe but why you'd feel it necessary to keep the camera on constantly and such seems a trifle idiotic. It's also worth noting that if you felt motion sickness during Blair Witch - it's going to be worse with this.

What about the much touted monster? As it turns out, earlier speculation of a "Whalezilla" was way off... which is a shame because that design was a lot more interesting than the design they used here... not that you really get more than a couple of good looks at the thing... sure, less can be more but here it was just... barely anything. With Godzilla, you can accept the ability to shrug off an entire country's firepower. With the Cloverfield monster, it doesn't even look like it could support itself - let alone survive a few dozen bombing runs from the USAF. Hell, you can tell your designer sucked more than a legion of quantum singularity powered super whores when some joker on the internet makes a better design in his free time than the professional you got to do a piss poor rip-off of the monster in Godzilla 2000.

As if a poor man's Godzilla teleporting around the city to menace our shaky handed hero isn't enough, the creature in question has a bunch of mini-monsters on it. They're not particularly original either. Somewhere between a bug from Starship Troopers and an angry woodlouse. They're there for the occasional fright and to put in a more pervasive sense of danger... After all, something of roughly human size can sneak up on you a lot more than something big enough to punch the face off the Statue of Liberty. Kind of a cheap way of adding more excitement... in much the same way never showing the monster was a cheap way of making this film.

It's funny. This film is... probably worse than the American Godzilla film. At least that gave you money shots and such. This is just a Blair Witch clone with a monster instead of a witch... And it can't claim originality... It can certainly claim to have generated a hilarious amount of hype... but hype is about all it's good for. The inevitable sequel may well fall in Blair Witch 2 territory but then... at the same time, it would be hard pressed to suck more.

All in all, coming in at LESS than 90 minutes - this isn't value for money. It doesn't even get close to a good way to pass time from now unto death. If you want motion sickness though, this would be great.