JJ Abrams's quota in the youth of his filmmaking legacy has very much been making the impossible real. He did it with Alias in his TV days, Lost in his further TV days and Mission Impossible in his spring to the big screen. Now he is doing it as producer of Cloverfield; a monster-versus-city blockbuster viewed from a handheld camera by one of a group of civilians caught in the mess.

The blandness of Cloverfield's pitch for the 18-30 demographic is a nasty shock to the system. With protagonists enviable only in their waistlines and cover-page looks (the only real exception to this rule is a character relegated to the off-screen role) audiences will be forgiven for crying Satire! from their pews on the front row. This point is expounded by what is quite possibly the single most offensive piece of product placement in cinema history (see: bereavement-phone-call-aftermath-whilst-seated-next-to-phonecompany-billboard scene).

It's a shame that with a fully-loaded barrel of special-effects and technology Cloverfield's directors/writers couldn't have conjured a more exuberant piece of work. Very much the Blair Witch Project of the genre, the characters here similarly lack any everyman charisma or motive to root for them outside of the barebones reasoning that Hey, look, they're humans too!

If the film had taken as confident an approach with its characters as with its product placement the overall effect may have been much more satisfying. Tears shed over the lack of charm should be wiped away quite quickly, however, as Cloverfield is mostly aware that the aces up its sleeve are some visceral special effects set-pieces. Viewed as a series of short excursions through a Poseidon Adventure with a killer on the rampage, Cloverfield delivers some truly wonderful imagery and exciting isolated incidents. Not to be spoiled here, lovers of Friday night watch-it-go-boom entertainment should be at home.

Though the experience on offer is very much tailored to the environment of the cinema, with some stunning sound design a particular highlight, there is a nagging sense throughout that rather than an amusement park thrillride, you are infact a passive member of a group viewing a videogame text. The set-piece to set-piece nature and, indeed, the slightly wooden and timed dialogues overlapping the first-person perspective lend the film an odd sense of displacement from a medium that has already footholed this approach. After years of cinematic pillaging has the interactive videogame medium finally been plagiarised itself? Maybe.

So with the hype settled and the product in theatres, what ultimately remains in the wake of Cloverfield's reign of terror on the eyeballs?

You'll have to see it to find out.

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