Director: Matt Reeves
Year Released: 2008
Rating: 2.0
Godzillaesque monster movie is actually a technically accomplished picture - the you-are-there handheld camerawork is a trick but an efficient one - but altogether it's a soulless affair with the appeal of a rollercoaster (not that there's anything wrong with rollercoasters). Naturally, this Manhattan-under-siege premise is really just a psychical reenactment of the Sept. 11 Attacks, 'repeating' the terror of those events - and the creepy citizen-supplied footage from the ground - but played out an even larger scale, crafting a virtually unfixable scenario that involves massive destruction and no salvation (the entire cast dies): Armageddon as viral video, blockbuster moviemaking as manifestation of societal anxiety. As a 'diary' it's more convincing than George Romero's Diary of the Dead but I'm sure if the real-life Dept. of Defense got a hold of this footage, I'm certain they would have spliced out the blasé love interest stuff and the audio from the annoying narrator. I'm just sayin'....
