The Host (2006 South Korea, 2007 USA)

Also known as Gwoemul.
Now this is how you do a monster movie! Take a splash of Godzilla, lightly season with bits of Jaws, Jurassic Park, and Alien, a dash of Evil Dead 2 for humor, and sprinkle liberally with anything by Hitchcock. Cook for two hours and out pops something wonderfully surprising and delightfully original. Terrifying monster? Check. Large-scale action sequences? Check. Brisk pace? Check. An involving story? Check. Social commentary on government intervention? Check. Bet-you-never-saw-that-coming plot twists? Check. Almost everything in this movie just works. So what if it dives into a bit of melodrama and overacting? Who cares if the effects aren't up to Pirates or Transformers standards? This movie is just plain, good natured, friendly, scary, silly, unique fun. I don't know how they did it, but those wacky Koreans may have pulled together an honest-to-goodness new classic monster movie.

9 out of 10.

Note: The English dub manages to get the point across, but is only so-so. If you don't mind subtitles, stick with the original Korean.