10 Plot Hole Lane

Rating: 2/10 (14 March 2016)

I went into this a somewhat fan of Cloverfield. The first one wasn't by any means genius, but it was enjoyable for a monster flick. When I saw they made a sequel with John Goodman, I was pretty excited. And the first act of the movie was decent. But the movie quickly backslides as it pushes into the second and third act.
**Spoilers**
The movie would like you to believe that it charts a weak woman's rise from being paralyzed from fear to defeating a fearsome alien. But the movie unfortunately forgets that Michelle is strong from the beginning. After being captured by Goodman's character (Howard), she whittles a crutch into a sphere IN MERE MINUTES, lights a fire in the air vent, and attacks him. Curiously, the movie back tracks and she says she's weak, the product of child abuse (which, by the way, is a pointless and pathetic attempt to explain her supposed cowardly behavior). But throughout the movie, she continually tries to attack Howard and escape. Howard claims that they cannot go outside because aliens or military men have infected the air with toxins, and she initially trusts him, but then realizes he was keeping girls in the bunker, so she decides to escape and find help. At the climax of the movie, Howard kills Emmett (who is also in the bunker) and then chases her, B- movie style around the bunker. She topples acid on him (yes, there's a barrel of acid in there because...well, the plot demanded it), and he survives, just in time to try to stab at her while she escapes via air ducts....
....then she realizes that oops, Howard was right! There are aliens. After running around, she jumps in her car, is picked up by the alien, and she crafts (Lara Croft, Tomb-Raider style) a Molotov cocktail. She easily heaves it into its mouth, and it explodes. She falls to the ground, gets back into the car, hears a call on the radio for people to help defeat aliens and she drives off into the sunset. Or rather, the alien filled sunset.
Plot Hole Notables: 1) Howard is maybe a pedophile. We never know. That fact is just there is make him seem scarier. 2) Even though they need the air ducts to survive, Howard specifically made them in such a way that a small woman would be able to climb through them, rather than himself, which means if he hadn't kidnapped her he would have never been able to get through the busted ducts 3) Howard survives his body being dumped in acid that works so fast it had practically dissolved Emmett's body in minutes. 4) Michelle magically heaves said cocktail on the first try, easily defeating something a whole army couldn't withstand. 5) She complains she is cowardly yet shows no sign of it throughout the movie, other than a backstory.
In the end, this was a movie that was 80% about a bunker and another inexplicable 20% franchise tie-in. The movie says nothing, is vague, and screws with audiences just cuz. Acting's not bad, though, which earned it that extra star.