Cloverfield

Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives.

Cloverfield lands somewhere between creature-feature thrillride and polarizing provocation: critics broadly agreed the found-footage conceit was executed with genuine craft and that the monster sequences delivered real tension, but the film's repeated echoes of September 11 imagery cut opinion sharply in two — some saw it as emotionally resonant subtext, others as cynical exploitation. Audience reaction was notably cooler than critical opinion, suggesting the queasy camerawork and underdeveloped characters wore out their welcome faster with general viewers than with reviewers.