Godzilla Who? Cloverfield; Manhattan Just Got Served.

Saw Cloverfield tonight and all that kept running through my mind, other than "holy shit, holy shit, holy shit" was "man, this is SO the Godzilla movie that Godzilla wanted to be". Which is weird because in my mind I am usually terribly more eloquent but that is the honest self dialog that was repeated to myself.... by me, er... never mind. (:58)
Now I love Godzilla.... I mean I LOOOOVE Godzilla but let's be honest, he is not exactly the timeless icon that say Superman is. Yes there have been lots of versions of Superman but they were all super and they were all men kind of sticking to a general theme. Godzilla was originally an anti war mockumentary before there were mockumentaries. Much less "stomp on buildings" and much more character development of the non scaley nature. But that is really irrelevant to my point and just a way for me to throw out some Godzilla geekatude. As a whole I don't think we see Godzilla for much more than what he occupied most of his post Gorgira (first Godzilla) screen time with which is walking all over very inhabited places and squishing people and swatting at planes and that is perfectly fine with me. Some of my best childhood moments were ogling 'ol Z man from the man on the street camera angle ripping perfectly good models to shreds. I mean buildings. Toho and Hollywood have been trying to catch up to that image the world has painted for Godzilla ever since. There were some good efforts too, like Godzilla 1985 and Godzilla 2000 but none of them delivered that monster movie feel that first generation and first few Godzilla movies gave you as a kid. Don't even get me started on the American version of "Godzilla", that wasn't even Godzilla, that was some lizard some kid drew on the computer that some other dude who happened to know some dude who makes movies liked. That was as much Godzilla as my friend that I don't haves pet dog Godzilla that does not really exist. You know what did give me that feeling though? You guessed it you smart little bugger, Cloverfield did. Was it perfect? Hardly. Was it the best monster movie ever made? No. Was is terrible and worthless next to the hype? Also no. It was in fact, great and great in scale too. The CGI was not CGI-ish. The sound was noticeably well thought out and mixed. Even the casting was pretty good, something not overwhelmingly noticed in monster movies because it's usually absent. There is the monster and then there is everyone else. Never felt that way in this flick. I won't ruin anything for the 2 people who read this site that weren't with me watching the movie so I will leave you with my thumbs up and my hopes far from dashed. I went in thinking "man, I hope this is the Godzilla that Godzilla screwed up" and I left happy. It was beyond that. It was it's own monster movie with the concentration on everything but the monster. Brilliant.