Well, at least it's not found footage

Rating: 5/10 (21 July 2016)

I've never seen the original "Cloverfield", but it was the cover image of John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead that sold me on the sequel. At the time, that seemed like a can't-lose. Ehhhh . . .
I will say, first and foremost, that the movie suffers from having to tie in to the original. That last 15 minutes or so does its best to wreck this movie and any suspense that's preceded it. Awful ending.
As for the rest of the movie, yeah, it's a thriller, but only if you accept that subtlety has no place here. It's a young woman being held captive in an underground bunker (either by fallout overhead or her imbalanced captor), and I did want her to escape and gain closure in the end. But it's the journey thereto that wasn't very fun. I really wanted to like this because I really do like the two leads - and, credit where it's due, Goodman's casting was a stroke of genius here - but you can start to see the twists coming before they actually do, and that does get old. It's not a good script. I would recommend this if you like claustrophobic movie-making and eye candy (this does well on both counts) but it'll leave a sour aftertaste.
5/10