For those of us who saw the exciting nameless trailer before Transformers and scoured the ‘net looking for clues as to what it was all about, there was a lot of hype and anticipation for producer J.J. Abrams' “Cloverfield". Unfortunately, after all of the little teasers and the clips for a film that remained title-less for months and that promised to be terrifying and suspenseful, "Cloverfield" fell a bit short of its mark.

"Cloverfield" is a Blair Witch style creation with a lot of screaming and running and a big sea creature or alien visitor caught on amateur video as it attacks the city of Manhattan.

Rob Hatcher's friends and family have arranged a surprise party to bid him farewell before he leaves for his new job in Japan. However, the celebrations are interrupted around midnight by loud explosions and tremors. When the party-goers spill out into the streets to investigate the source of the disturbance they are shocked and terrified to see some sort of gigantic creature rampaging through the city, knocking down entire buildings and dropping smaller creatures into the streets that are biting and killing any humans they come in contact with. As the video camera that was recording the bon voyage party continues to roll, Rob and a small group of friends try to make their way through the city to rescue a trapped girlfriend and escape the city limits before the military bombs the entire island of Manhattan.

Sounds exciting enough, right? A little cheesy and far-fetched maybe, but, it still had the potential to be suspenseful and scary. The fact that the entire movie is shot on a home video recorder should have made the absurd story seem more real and believable, and maybe it would have, if they never actually captured the creature on tape. But once you see this giant prehistoric looking monster strolling down the streets, stepping on tanks and dropping little monster babies everywhere, the story starts to lose any believability it may have had at the beginning. The amateur video style also means that there is a lot of shaking and dropping of the camera during attacks. The image is constantly jiggling and moving in and out of focus with lights consistently blinking on and off throughout the recording. So if you suffer from motion sickness you may want to sit this one out. All in all, "Cloverfield” falls short of the excitement it’s preview generated, but it is definitely worth seeing once.