Also Crad, I’m not sure… it didn’t seem to be going that fast, and we don’t know how it came to enter the atmosphere. Would something dropping in synchronous to the ground rather than aerobraking pick up enough speed to flare like that? I suppose it all depends on their starting location/speed…

The issue of whether the camera has a memory card or tape is a continuity error. It’s clearly stated in the opening moments that it’s a memory card, but during the movie, when Rob notices that it’s his camera being used, he clearly asks if the TAPE has been changed. So your nit pretty much stands.

As for where the creature comes from, it’s from space. I’ll echo what’s already been said by others. At the very end of the film, when the last footage of Coney Island is playing out, the camera pans to the ocean briefly. An object falls out of the sky in the distance, traveling from near the top right corner of the screen toward the center in a slant until it hits the ocean.

Look at the static that occurs in the switch between the two sets of footage. There’s undoubtedly some amusing stuff there. By looking at some of the static sections frame-by-frame, I managed to find a few frames from the original King Kong. There’s no telling what subliminal stuff they put in during editing.

Adios!

For the building in #8, I want to point out that the base of the building is still standing, so unless the supports snapped as the tower tipped, much of the weight is still resting on the vertical beams through to the ground. A very rough estimate says the building is leaning at a 7:1 slope (7 stories up for every 1 story sideways) at the worst point (the base is straight, then it sorta curves over into the other building, and is somewhat “merged” with the other building by virtue of all the weight crushing them together. In fact, a good deal of the weight of the leaning building would be resting on the supports from the standing building; this combined with the fact that the base is intact makes it more believable. I’m not an engineer either, but it seems within the realm of possible enough that it just might happen. Even if the building collapsed, it can only collapse so far before it has to topple the other building to go anywhere, and since Beth’s apartment was almost at the top, it’s feasible that there’s not a ton of weight on that floor, hence why it’s mostly intact.

Speaking of which: didn’t anyone else notice that Beth got pulled off a piece of rebar that was sticking *through her chest*, then she is able to run just as fast as everyone else (and actually outruns Hud), and help drag Rob right before Hud gets it? That was the first thing I thought when they showed her there: “Wow, even if they get her off she’ll be lucky to stand up, much less walk.” Especially given that she’s been there 7 hours, bleeding out, cold, scared and extremely tired.

In regards to the monster size, I count about 20 stories in the all-fours position, but then he raises up on his hind legs and nearly doubles in height. He then raises his arm which reaches 50+ stories total (I’m guessing here, since I can’t actually count the windows all the way from the ground). *Then*, he jumps to probably 100+ stories in the air to whack the chopper (which somehow isn’t crushed like a tin can), which negates his “slow, lumbering, hulking behemoth” status. Due to perspective, it’s hard to tell if the thing that got Hud is the same size as the thing elsewhere, but based on foot size, it’s probably at least 75% of the size, so if it’s smaller it’s probably a technical issue with special effects scaling rather than a different monster (the foot smashing a tank fits under a bridge easily, and is about 3/4 the height of a telephone pole while standing on the tank, and right before it gets Hud it appears to be maybe twice his height, but there are no visual cues to really measure against so depth perception is off and it could be a bit taller–also, when he looks up at the monster, he’s probably zoomed in, making it seem closer than it is).

Of course, if we made movies too realistic, we’d have to fire all the actors, since very few actors behave realistically (and the ones who do are called “bad actors”). Which is something I like about the party scene: all the mundane stuff you see in that scene is part of what makes it stand out above normal movies in realism. Like when Hud zooms in on the hot girl in the background while “filming” the good-bye speeches, or says “here, I put the camera down” but leaves it running.

Oh, and I don’t think the tail that hits the bridge is the same as the tail on the main monster. The bridge tail is thin and tentacle-y while the main monster tail is tall and flat like a fish tail. It’s just possible that the bridge tail is the monster tail sideways so it just looks thin, but I don’t think so. There *is* definately something falling in that final scene though. The “meteor” is very small on-screen and just a darker gray against the lighter gray clouds in the background, so that explains why a lot of people didn’t see it, combined with the fact that most people probably weren’t really looking (I didn’t know this was a game of Clue).

And the voice at the end does say “It’s still alive” fairly clearly when reversed, though that could be because the wikipedia site says it says that. Regardless, the forward recording sounds like gibberish and very much like a reversed sound. And now off to less nerdy things, like EQ2.

The first thing that concerned me on watching the movie was the intro that shows this as being “footage from XXX location” and I thought “Oh no! This better not be more Blair Witch crap!”. But it wasn’t. They did everything BWP completely failed at. First, it was not shot from a HandyCam. It was shot from professional-grade cameras in the mode of a HandyCam. This difference is critical; unlike the BWP, CF is a full-featured movie with all the post-processing and special effects of Star Wars or Indiana Jones, but shot from the perspective of a single person. Second, CF showed us people who were afraid of something a little more tangible than shadows. Third, CF was scripted, so it had humor and chaos, without all the “hey, what am I supposed to be doing here? ! I still haven’t advanced the plot. . .” of BWP.

I completely missed nitpick #1. Since I still have the movie sitting on my table (I’ll take it back tonight), I might go through to see it. Nitpick #2 occurred to me, but then it occurred to me that even my laptop was fully charged when I bought it from the store. #3 occurred to me repeatedly, but I did like the part at the end where he says “we have 3 seconds to the end of the tape”. Still, I don’t have a problem believing someone has better battery than my el cheapo camera, which lasts about 30 minutes with the light and IR modes being used off-and-on. Additionally, the flip-out LCD screens are a huge power draw, so my camera might last an hour or so if you only used the eye-piece. Nitpick #4 was the deal-breaker for my suspension of disbelief. We have weapons capable of blowing football fields covered in meters of concrete into the atmosphere; I have a very hard time buying that even a carpet bombing just barely slowed it down. With #5, at least it mostly moved very slowly, like you would expect a friggin huge monster to do. Because of that, though, I thought the scene where it just looms up and knocks a helicopter out of the sky seemed a bit odd. #6. . . I agree to an extent. I think it would have been consistent if he’d set the camera down in a strategically-scripted location to do more. Maybe drop the camera when he’s attacked (so it magically points right at all the action, of course) and do something besides be a wuss. But then, there are wusses out there. Three fighters and one wuss isn’t a bad random sample of a going-away-party population. By the way, he also set the camera down right before the monster bit him so he could help drag Rob away, so he helped out twice, not just once. He also pointed out the “climb the other building” plan, specifically said that he wanted to say something to his friend but didn’t know what, and probably the hardest thing of all was of not trying to hit on this girl he’s obviously got a big crush on even though this will likely be the only chance he gets (even if they all live). With #7, I wasn’t in a place with news while the WTC events were unfolding, and I really haven’t had a reason to go back and watch the videos, so I’ve no idea. However, it seems to me that a good way to replicate horrible events is to mimic actual footage of horrible events. Given that there aren’t a whole lot of skyscrapers falling down with tons of footage from all angles, the WTC event is among the best places to look. With #8, I don’t know. Yes, buildings are designed thinking most of the weight points down, not sideways, but at the same time there has to be some lateral resistance from winds. I don’t know the exact forces involved, but I’ve seen skyscrapers hit by category 4 tornados and they were still structurally sound, so the lateral strength can’t be *that* weak (the same tornados lifted huge sections of overpass and flung them hundreds of feet). I can see having one over-engineered building (out of all the other stuff the monster knocked over) that happened to not completely disintegrate from tipping sideways (I mean, look at the Tower of Pisa) and happened to be the one with the girlfriend. Plus, if that building wouldn’t take the stress, why would the other building (the one still standing)? Wouldn’t the immense sideways stress of the first building topple it too (making this double-bad-physics)?

While we’re on the subject of other movies this “copied”, I would like to say this had a several similarities to Miracle Mile in my mind, particularly towards the end. Going back to the apartment complex to save the girlfriend (though Miracle Mile’s wasn’t leaning up against another building), the rioting in the streets, coming out of the subway into the mall-like building with the bright light and military (instead of cops), the helicopter crash, and finally the boyfriend/girlfriend dying in each others arms amid the city being blown apart by (presumably) nukes all seemed very similar.

I can’t say I like or disliked the movie and I can’t say I am middle of the way. Parts of it I really liked, sometimes the movie made you feel part of the people in panic. But my problem is that the movie was just not fun overall. I think what ruined it for me is that it has no information at all. I mean its fine if you don’t know it for long time but you end up in the end with everyone dying and you still don’t know what happened. Where did it come from? Did they kill it in the end? How? Its like reading a book with nice story in the middle and that just wasn’t finished. Basicaly I liked it when it started and I hated it in the end.

SEVERAL of the scenes were straight out of 9/11 and honestly I found it to be disturbing and distasteful (downtown NYC being attacked in the manner that it was, ashes falling, people running into stores with clouds chasing behind them, ashened faces….ithe similarities were too much for me to handle….and frankly I was offended…..I apologize if I’m being to sensitive….I know movies are for enjoyment purposes….if you’re not from NYC and can get clips on live news footage you’ll see what I’m talking about…..it really does seem like some footage was directly acted out in scenes of the movie)….I’m not sure if that’s because I personally went thru the situation as it was happening. I feel that the monster attack could’ve been portrayed differently.

Putting all of that aside I still think it was a lame movie……much prefer the recent version of War of the Worlds and I’m not even a Tom Cruise fan….although I do LOVE Dakota!

Most of the nitpicks are right on. I think the first explosion wold have been much more effective if the light had arrived before the sound.

As for the monster being able to take the abuse it did, I have to wonder how sturdy a creature would be if it lived in the deep ocean, under that kind of pressure. I did’t see the object falling into the water in the last scene, even though the shot drew my eye to look for something in the ocean.

The camera? A super rich guy with business connections in Japan might have access to a camera better than any I’ve heard of. I have no problem there.

Hud filming while running? If the camera is large and heavy, like a TV news camera, it would be much easier to run with it on your shoulder, so the shot would still be eye-view.

EMP? I certainly hope that the Army would exhaust every other option before nuking Manhattan. The soldier who was warning them about the bombing never said nuke. Don’t you think he would have if that was the plan? It makes sense to try a an MOAB or a fuel-air explosion first, especially since the monster was showing no signs of leaving the area.

Lastly, nearly every review I’ve read mentions how unlikable all the characters are. I didn’t find that to be the case at all. I wanted to marry Marlena.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

Presumably the “hammerdown” (I think that is what they called it) protocol that the military was going to implement would have been a nuke, as it looks like that is about the only thing that could stop whatever the monster was. At the start of the movie, it says that the video was found on a SD card in central park. If the military used a nuke to take out the monster, I would imagine that the EMP from the nuke would have completely erased any magnetic storage within a rather large radius.

The beginning of the movie sort of dragged on for my tastes. Too much drama for my tastes but maybe that was sort of the point because reality sets in and all that cheesy dilemma gets replaced with an actual problem.

Some people here say they felt like they were going to throw up. I mean was that hyperbole or did you actually get dizzy from a movie? I mean you weren’t moving yourself. I mean your inner ear should have still felt fine, so how the heck do you get dizzy watching a screen? That’s never made sense to me. How does watching something spin make you get dizzy? I also never got those “spinning tunnels” in amusement parks that made everyone around me grip the handrails on the perfectly stationary bridge. It’s like most people don’t even have an inner ear or something, or maybe there’s stronger biological bias in some people for the inner ear as balance than in others, except I don’t get sea sick on a boat either.

So anyway I’ve heard complaints about Hud “not helping” but I think they were watching some other movie. I mean the guy never had a chance to do much of anything. What did you expect him do to? I mean he saved them with the infrared mode and his scream. During that attack of the fleas he was knocked to the frickin’ ground. What sort of help is he supposed to offer when he’s trapped? Then it’s over. I find him blameless. As for him carrying the camera the whole time, yeah I found that unrealistic. However I have heard interviews on some shows of people filming during intense situations who say that psychologically looking through the camera feels like a defense mechanism, like they are somehow seperated a little from the violence. Maybe that’s what the director was going for.

The monster was from outer space and had been living and growing in the ocean off of coney island. At the end of the movie, when the video cuts back to footage of Rob & Beth at coney island and the camera is pointing towards the ocean, you can see a big splash to the right, off in the distance. A meteor perhaps?