Saw it tonight. I've been wanting to see this for nearly six months but for the most part, I agree with the review. Despite what some posters have been saying, the 9/11 references are unmistakable. But that alone, while cheap and perhaps a bit offensive, is not what made it a shitty film. The characters are completely unlikeable and the film takes itself way too seriously, apparently trying to ride on contemporary images of horror without adding anything insightful or interesting to the subject or genre. Watch the movie and you'll be disappointed. This is not a "fun" monster movie. It could've been that, but instead it's trying to be 28 Days Later without the substance. May the lives of the writer, director, and producer end in despair.

I'm sure 9/11 did have an effect on the production of this movie. That is, everyone was instantly educated on 9/11 as to what effects a collapsing building would produce in NYC. To have collapsing buildings NOT look like that would be what, willful ignorance for the sake of some weird sentimentality for the horrors of that day?

This is right. In a bizarre way, 9/11 itself was life imitating blockbuster. Most people seeing what actually happened, either first hand or in the endlessly looping TV images couldn't help but compare it to Independence Day, Armageddon, or any of the numerous disaster films of recent memory.

For the first time, we have a visual vocabulary of what a destroyed NYC would really look like. If you're trying to make a gritty, realistic take on a giant monster movie, made from a firs t person perspective, there's no way you can ignore that.

When I first saw the posters for "Cloverfield", I thought "I am so goddamned sick of seeing New York City destroyed."

In December I had seen "I Am Legend," which was a crap film, but not because it featured a depopulated Manhattan. In fact, the only thing that was interesting about it was the ruins of Manhattan. The rest was abysmally stupid.

But then, right on its heels, came the advertisements for "Cloverfield", and I thought, "Jesus, the delight filmmakers take in destroying Manhattan is beginnning to verge on sadistic." Then and there I decided I wasn't going to see it.

This was a completely visceral reaction, not some politically-correct posturing. I am a New Yorker who experienced 9/11 firsthand - although, thank God, not as firsthand as some other people - and I think I've just reached my saturation point. Sure, before 9/11 there were countless films - Godzilla, Independence Day, King Kong, hell even Ghostbusters - where monsters rampage through the City. And no doubt part of it is that Manhattan is full of iconic buildings and landmarks whose destruction makes for thrilling visuals. But dare I say that 9/11 should have changed all that? After a while, you begin to think, "Could they just leave us freakin' alone for a movie or two? There was a real tragedy that happened here, people, and to see it replayed again and again in the fictionalized destruction of the City - well, after a while, it's begining to trigger a sort of post-tramatic stress disorder in me. Imagine seeing it happen over and over to the City YOU live in.

Sometimes I begin to wonder whether the rest of the country finds 9/11 more titillating than tragic. The rest of the country can't seem to get enough of it. 9/11-this, 9/11-that. New Yorkers are just trying to get on with their lives, and hope that nothing like it ever happens again, to New York or any other American city.

P.S.: Just for the record, I won't mind the destruction scene in "Watchman" so much because, as you point out, it was written 20 years ago and it's not the obsessive focus of the story. Strangely, though, when I re-read the graphic novel last year, I was more disturbed by that part than I had been when I first read it. I'm not saying there should be a ban on any destruction or devastation that might evoke 9/11, but to me "Cloverfield" looked more exploitative than artistic.

P.P.S.: I also didn't want to see "Cloverfield" because I was sure it was going to be as lame as "Lost" ultimately turned out to be. I don't think I'm a J.J. Abrams fan after all.

The horror™ of 9-11! the horror of 9-11™! Oh, the horror!!!

I, for one, hope to live long enough to see a frank, flat out comedy made of "9/11." I mean, even funnier than Fahrenheit 911.

Face it, if this were a healthy society, we'd have gotten over it long ago.

It's interesting to see both sides of this argument: the non-New Yorkers who think most of us are still wringing our hands and milking 9/11 for all it's worth (and who secretly or not so secretly get a thrill out of seeing New York get nailed), and the New Yorkers who are just tired of seeing fictitious versions of New York getting blown up in movies over and over again, after having seen some *actual* horrific stuff a few years ago.

I'm a New Yorker too--I was born here I've lived here all my life. I knew people who died on 9/11, and and I too am tired of seeing trailers for movies that show some sort of post-apocalpytic Manhattan. And it's unfortunate that "I Am Legend" and "Cloverfield" opened at roughly the same time because it does feel like overkill.

It's not like other movies haven't shown other cities getting slammed. Baltimore gets blown away in "The Sum of All Fears" and the rubble of Las Vegas is under 80 feet of sand and debris in the latest "Resident Evil" movie.

But let's face it: New York makes an awesome setting for this kind of stuff. It just does. Aesthetically, symbolically, it really works.

If it bothers you to watch a movie where New York City gets destroyed, do what I'm doing: choose not to see it.