10 Cloverfield Lane Review

Rating: 9/10 (17 April 2016)

Dan Trachtenberg's directorial debut is a very good movie. Let's start off with that. However, for people looking to see a Cloverfield sequel or something, this probably isn't the movie for you. I heard this movie was going to be called originally "The Cellar" or "The Bunker" or something of that sort, but the producers decided nobody would have seen it if it was called that, so they incorporated the Cloverfield name to it and did a few re-shoots in post-production so it could fit into the Cloverfield universe. Sort of. But the movie really has nothing to do with Cloverfield.
So about the movie itself. This is a very claustrophobic, eerie thriller with great direction and performances. John Goodman plays this guy who is keeping this girl played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead captive in his bunker after she's in a car accident and he claims the air outside is unbreathable because there has been a sort of attack. This is the core of the film. The entire time you're wondering "Is this guy crazy? Or is he right?" And the movie excels at shaking it up making you think something happened, but then it didn't or maybe it did. Every scene in the movie has a point and it leads somewhere, there really is no filler. Every scene is filled with this tension and is punctuated by Goodman's great performance. The movie is an hour and 43 minutes long, it certainly felt a lot shorter because you're so invested in the story and the characters that you almost forget you're watching a movie. What I loved about Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character is that she's always ahead of the audience. She's very smart and everything the movie sets up about her has a payoff, which is great. What she does in the movie is very clever and I loved that about her character. I haven't mentioned the other guy who is in there with them, but he's pretty good as well.
OK so here's the deal with 10 Cloverfield Lane. Everything up until the last 10 minutes or so is absolutely perfect, at least for me. But then (long story short), she escapes and when she does she realizes the air isn't really contaminated. Then she hears something in the distance, she looks and there's clearly an alien ship flying around. She says something like "Oh, come on," Now, if the credits rolled right after that, I s**t you not I would have gotten up in the theater and applauded. But I guess you can't end the movie like that because it would have been too confusing for audiences and you have to have an action scene or something. And this is where the movie falls apart. She starts being chased by this alien dog or whatever and then she is pulled up into the alien ship and she builds a Molotov cocktail at the alien mouth in the ship or whatever and she escapes. I'm pretty sure the entire point of that scene was that you would have at least some action in the movie so audiences got their "money's worth" and so you could have the movie in IMAX and make some more bucks. But then the dumbest thing ever happens. She's driving around and hears in the radio there are survivors in Baton Rouge and she can find refuge there. But then they say they could use some help in Houston if you have some sort of medical or military training. Immediately when she hears that she stops the car and coincidentally right in front of her is a sign that says like "Baton Rouge go straight. Houston go left". So she goes left of course, but the thing is you do not have to treat your audience like children.
Overall, the ending really disappointed me. But everything else in 10 Cloverfield Lane is great. The acting is pretty good and the directing is great because the movie gives you like clues and you start to put the puzzle pieces together about what is really happening. A solid film.
9.2/10