Monster (2008)

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

I wanted so much to like this movie going into it, but ended up being bitterly disappointed. Someone should tell Hollywood and independent filmmakers: Enough already with the "found footage" concept!!!The story revolves around two sisters who are documentary filmmakers in Tokyo to produce a piece on global warming. Based on that premise, you would think they have some modicum of professionalism. But from the very beginning, the movie goes astray. First of all, it's difficult to believe professional filmmakers would dress the way these two did, ESPECIALLY in a foreign country as conservative as Japan. No one would take them seriously and consent to be interviewed. Secondly, their technique is sloppy. The camera work is amateurish and their questions regarding global warming are superficial and not well thought out. Speaking of the camera, they must have had the worst, because that thing went on the fritz if someone even breathed too hard. Then there's the obsessive, narcissistic focus on the two girls and each other. If I had a camera (and I'm NOT a professional), I'd try to get as much footage of the monster as possible. Not these two. They just fill the storage with themselves and scenes of tripping, running, tumbling, inane conversation with strangers, crying fits, ruined buildings, food they happened to be eating/drinking at the moment, etc.And this is really where the movie falls down. In a film like this, you've got to show the goods. Spending about an hour on intense build- up only to show a split second tentacle here and there just doesn't cut the mustard. We need to see the full monty. Can you imagine showing the destruction of Tokyo without ever showing Godzilla in those movies? It would be pointless.If you haven't seen it already, the gold standard for the found footage/huge monster concept is Cloverfield. Check it out if you want to see it done right.

I've seen so many people talk about this film in a negative light....but they're all wrong! This is the greatest movie ever made! Casablanca and Citizen Kane ain't got nuthin on this SH*T! I mean, the actors are SO believable in their performances, and i'm so surprised that they aren't in any other movies! The monster itself looks amazing, and it makes movies like Cloverfield or Godzilla look like fake clay puppets. The camera work is also amazing,and the random effects added in make the camera work even better, making everyone look like they're actually there! This is definitely the best movie ever made! Or.....it's a giant piece of Tyrannosaur dookie. Also, it's a rip off of Cloverfield....just wanted you to know. However, i actually do have two uses for this movie 1. As a piece of toilet paper 2. As a sleep aid (it's so boring you're probably not going to make it through without falling asleep or skipping through)

i gave this movie 1 out of 10 stars because there wasn't an option for 0 stars.this film is basically... no wait... literally about two girls having fun pretending to be reporters or something. there are plenty of girl moments to be had here. they obviously just wanted to have fun. what was really interesting was the way none of their conversations were relevant. they spent a lot of time bitching at each other about the camera. it was pivotal at times, that camera. these girls look HOT when they smear bits of soot and fake blood on themselves. i was totally jelous of the white guy that was hanging with them, until he died inexplicably.a bunch of stuff doesn't happen, and then i think they died. i'm not sure. i'm not sure about anything anymore. there's a little piece of me that now just wants to move to tokyo and have fun with girls.feces for the mind.

This very low-budget rip off of Cloverfield is surprisingly well done, yet it is ultimately undone by a near total lack of plot and a complete absence of an ending. It's actually a lot smarter than the many other rip off films like this which litter video store shelves and frequently show up on the Sy Fy channel but while the effort may be admirable, the result is not that entertaining.Erin and Sarah (Erin Evans and Sarah Lynch) are a couple of American sisters who go to Tokyo to shoot their own documentary on global warming with a single video camera and some girlish gumption. While they're there, the city starts to shake. It's not an earthquake, though. What's shaking things up is a giant tentacled beast that rampages through Tokyo. Filming all the way, Erin and Sarah try to stay alive and, with the help of some Japanese folks, make it to the U.S. embassy.I wouldn't recommend this movie for too many people because it gets fairly dull after a while. I would encourage all other low-budget filmmakers to give Monster a look. That's because this film is very effectively styled. It's a much more realistic and, in some way, more imaginative take on the concept than the big budget flick it's shamelessly imitating. The quality of the video breaks up and freezes at times; the whole idea that they're going to keep filming everything is a much more contentious issue between the sisters; adding the language barrier nicely (and cheaply) complicates their situation; there's a pretty clever intimation that this isn't the only giant monster attack Tokyo has had to deal with; and there's a neat and perhaps unintentional subtext through the story about how the person in front of the camera is more freaked out while the person behind the camera is more in control, as though looking at the crisis through the lens provides a certain intellectual and emotional distance.Sadly, all of that gets crushed into a fine powder by the weight of the really sucky special effects and the fact that Erin and Sarah never manage to do or say anything at all interesting. The CGI in Monster is quite fake looking and overused. I lost count of the number of CGI aircraft seen soaring overhead, the damage to the city is represented by superimposing smoke onto unharmed buildings and the creature itself is nothing more 3 or 4 undulating tentacles that could be trying to destroy a city or simply trying to hail a monster-sized taxi. And after the initial discoveries about what's going on, the sisters might just as well be self-directed Segways that wheel from one bizarrely empty spot to another in the supposedly besieged metropolis.The end result of Monster is below average, but I give these filmmakers some credit for attempting to make something that's more than just another low-budget rip off. Writer David Michael Latt and director Erik Esterberg tried to make a legitimate movie. They failed..but at least they tried, which is more than you can say for most of the people involved in these sorts of ersatz productions.