A good movie that has no need of carrying the name "Cloverfield", because it stands fine on its one

Rating: 9/10 (5 August 2016)

In "10 Cloverfield Lane" we meet Michelle. She get's involved into a car accident, but when she wakes up, she is not in her car or in an hospital, she now is in a bunker. Here there are two guys, one of whom is the owner of the bunker, who claimes that the air outside is not breathable anymore. Now she has to find out if it is true, or that the man is just insane...
This is the directorial debut of Dan Trachtenberg. And hats of to him. He was a really good director. You may think that the movie would become boring after a while, due to the movie being set underground for a very big part, but Dan Trachtenberg made sure it didn't. He used different shots to keep you interested and he also took different directions each time. When there was dialogue you could be sure that you would see an alternation of different shots. This was done good, and kept you from getting bored. He is also a very good visual director. Lot's of the shots looked very nice. Especially the outside shots, here he had more room to work with and he used it, to accentuate that she now was outside and not in a small space anymore. That's why there were also a lot of close-ups in the scenes inside the bunker, to show the claustrophobia. This I found clever. The cinematography was done very good too which only complimented the directing. The cinematographer of "10 Cloverfield Lane" was Jeff Cuttr. The soundtrack was also very well chosen. The soundtrack made the intense scenes only more intense and the faster editing also helped with this. The songs where people in sang were also very good. The make-up design was surprisingly good. I say surprisingly, because I thought that this was going to be a low budget film. The wounds looked realistic and were not nice to look at.
The acting was very good. The cast was small, but filled with good actors. There was one person that surprised me a lot and this was also the main actress of the movie. This is of course Mary Elizabet Winstead, who played Michelle. I only have seen Winstead play bad characters or in movies where she just acted bad, but in this movie it is not the case. This was by far her best performance yet. She did well in the emotional scenes and also in the scenes just based on her facial expressions. She might have been good, but her co-worker overshadowed her. This was John Goodman. He was really good. Grom him I've seen a couple of movies and he was good in all of them, it just seems he is getting better by the years. He was threatening and intimidating. His unpredictable character only made it better. The last person on the list is Emmett. He was the other guy in the bunker. Emmet was played by John Gallagher Jr. He wasn't as special as the previous two, but he nonetheless gave a good performance.
The writing was the problem with this movie. Everything of the script was fine but the ending. The ending was way to abrupt and the tone switch wasn't handled well. The whole movie had an isolated, thrilling feel, but when she got out the tones rapidly changed. The ending was also dumb and kind of predictable. This was my main problem with the movie. The dumb ending. That's why my grade changed from a 9.5 to an 8.5. The dialogue was very well and carefully written, the dialogue fitted with the characters who said them. Which brings me to the next subject, the characters. These where well developed. Each one of them, which is very rare in today's movies. John Goodmans character I found the best. His character was the most interesting and intriguing. He was unpredictable, like I've said, but this was only one more thing to make his character interesting. The character of Mary Elizabeth Winstead was smart also something that you don't see a lot in movies these days, and also very likable. Emmett did undergo a character arc at the end, which was very good and well handled. I think by now you can see my surprise for the bad ending. Everything from the script was done so well and with care and at the end they just gave up or something. A smaller problem that I have with the screenplay is that you are still left with some questions, but I think that they did this intentionally, so you can think about the movie even after you've seen it. This is an acceptable excuse, but for some questions I think they didn't give you enough hints, or evidence. I also have no clue why the movie carries "Cloverfield" in the title, because it has nothing to do with that movie at all.
In the end I would say that "10 Cloverfield Lane" was a good movie, one of the better movies I've seen that came out in 2016. Just the ending ruined it for me and that's why I'm giving this movie a 8.5/10