Don't See "Cloverfield"

This is a warning to all of my friends to avoid seeing the new movie "Cloverfield." Since most of you live in a cave, I imagine you might not even know that there is in fact a movie called Cloverfield or that it released today.

My older brother called me yesterday and wanted me to go with him to see it since his wife didn't want to. You see, this movie is basically a modern day United States version of Godzilla, where some strange giant monster destroys New York City. The difference in this movie is that it is shown entirely from a first person camcorder-esque perspective, a la Blair Witch (which I still have never seen).

Had I seen Blair Witch, perhaps I would have been prepared for what was about to happen. You see, while this seems like a good concept for a movie and really draws you in to the real life terror of living through a monster destroying your town (ironically after a surprise party for one of the main characters who is moving to Japan), the camera work is...how should I put this...nauseating.

No, literally. There is not a still moment in the entire movie with the camera often jerking around in all sorts of directions and even swaying when the "cameraman" is trying to be still. The result is that about 15 minutes into the movie, I'm starting to feel dizzy and queezy. A few more minutes in and I'm forcing myself to look away from the screen for fear that I'm gonna yack all of the floor. Seriously, I probably didn't watch about 20 minutes worth of movie...and this treasure went on for about 1-1/2 hours. I leaned over to my bro and told him I might just up and leave, and he actually did for about 5 minutes, but somehow we made it through.

By the end of the movie, I feel physically ill, I had trouble driving home due to the motion sickness making the world seem blurry and uneasy even when I left the theater, and now I'm wondering if I should have just paid the $9.50 for some bad fish and dealt with the same feeling without giving up 1.5 hours of my day to get to this point. Save yourself from this anguish...avoid this movie. I wouldn't even recommend it on DVD. You've been warned.