I had a hard time enjoying this movie. I started getting motion sick about 20 minutes into it and couldn't shake it. I had to look away from the screen most of the time, only looking back during the more important parts.

It's pretty sad really. Film is a very visual medium but I could only listen to most of it. And from what I could see in my peripheral vision it didn't look like I was missing much. The story was great. I loved the monster. Everything looked so very real. But the fact that I couldn't watch it ruined the experience.

I'm wishing now that I had waited for it to come out on DVD so I could watch it on a smaller screen. And if that still made me sick I could turn it off and come back to it later when I was feeling better.

Didn't toss my cookies, but I did feel very woozy when I left the theater and it took me about an hour before I was feeling fine again.

And now that I've read through the thread...

I noticed that. Yes, to me it looked like foreshadowing. (Is it really foreshadowing if we see it at the end?) My theory is that it's the monster making a splashdown on earth.

I like that there were no answers and everything is left ambiguous. I don't always like to be left in the dark, but I think it works for this movie.

I envision it was the monster and the alien is one of those toys you buy at the mall where it is really small but expands to 5000% its original size when soaked in water.

In fact, these were obvious plants by an alien intelligence prepping us for our new overlords.

It expands 600% when in water, and it has to say "DO NOT SWALLOW!" on the package. Wow.

Watched it last night on Itunes rental. Good, unremarkable monster movie. I'd say the six principals were marginally more likeable than those in Open Water 2.

Replays definitely show a splash at the end. But so what. Either the monster comes to us or we create it. Until I confirmed the splash, I had been fond of thinking that, like the underground river of slime in Ghostbusters 2, the monster was the product of all the negative energy produced by unhappy, obligatory parties and bad relationships. Oh well.

I assume that if one went frame by frame, there would be many other secrets.

I thought it was quite a bit more then unremarkable. I was scared! And that doesn't happen much with me at the movies anymore. But I didn't like the camera work -- I thought it was annoying and harmed the film. Add a Kubrick-style steady cam to Cloverfield and you have one of the best horror movies of the last few years.

My son had me watch that recently. I told him I don't like movies like that, too real. Made to feel real, not a fantasy movie. I thought the story was so sad. I liked the characters and I was sad how it turned out.

I thanked him afterwards for making me feel creepy about going to any big city and worrying about a giant monster attacking it. :p