A Double Bladed Sword

Rating: 8/10 (11 March 2016)

10 Cloverfield Lane currently seems to be gaining A LOT of controversy on the Internet. I myself was a huge fan of the original film, having seen it multiple times I consider myself a big fan of all things Cloverfield. So of course you can imagine my excitement to this movie being announced 2 months before release.
So I head to my local theater on opening night, I expected that the only people who would be there would be die-hard Cloverfield fans like myself. And I was right for the most part. There we all were, sitting down, popcorn ready, all smiles and ready to see the continuation of a long gone franchise.
I know now what the people who saw the Phantom Menace for the first time felt.
Make no mistake this movie isn't actually bad, just disappointing. I feel very conflicted about this movie, so let me review it as best as I can, good things first.
Well the good part? The film is gripping with performance. We only have 3 lead actors in this movie but they all do a very good job. John Goodman is uneasy and menacing as his character, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is fantastic as Michelle and John Gallagher, Jr. as Emmett is also very good. They're basically the only characters we have throughout the film and luckily they do a great job. If any of them had given a bad performance then this film would have been a disaster.
And the emotion the film creates in you has to be commended as well! It serves up good doses of paranoia and the feeling of claustrophobia. You legitimately feel as though you're in this bunker with these people.
Now let's get down to the bad. Simply put 10 Cloverfield Lane is a double-sided blade. On on hand you can recognize that this is a good film. But on the other hand the movie is hurt by its title.
It's no secret that when you have the word 'Cloverfield' in your title, people will expect, oh I don't know A MONSTER. It would be like if Steven Spielberg released a movie called 'Tales of Jaws.' You would fully expect this to be a movie about Jaws and you'd get excited. But then when you head in the theater you realize that the movie is just comprised of a series of stories set in the sea with no relation to Jaws.
You're fully expecting to see anything related to Cloverfield as you watch this movie but there's nothing! The best I can figure is the presence of the company Slusho which is a big part of the Cloverfield mythology. But your average moviegoer isn't going to know this! The average moviegoer expects to see a monster or maybe hear about the fate of the characters from the first movie but there's nothing!
Something horrible is that it seems like at times the movie ITSELF is misleading you. There are moments in this movie when it seems like Clover (the monster from Cloverfield) is going to show up. And by the time the ending of the movie rolls around you're 99% sure that Clover is going to be outside the bunker!
And that leads me to my biggest complaint about the movie. The twist. I won't spoil what it is because the twist has to be SEEN to be BELIEVED. It comes out of nowhere like a freight train and it's so laughably bad that it makes the twist in the Happening look like the twist from Fight Club. I'm telling you, as soon as my theater audience saw the twist I could feel as though everyone wanted to burst out laughing. I know I did.
So the thing that really kills this movie is its own marketing. I know that the original title of the movie was called 'The Cellar' and it should have stayed that way. The movie was purposefully renamed '10 Cloverfield Lane' in order to sell tickets. Nothing more. Blood relative said JJ? Yeah right, this movie has more in common with my Fallout fan fiction than it does Cloverfield. What does that even mean? I don't know, I'm just so angry at this movie.
Some people won't like this review. And that's fair. If you were to just wipe your brain clean of this movie being hailed as a spiritual successor to Cloverfield and saw it as its own movie then yeah, it's a good movie. Without a shred of doubt. But unfortunately the movie is also hurt by its own title and marketing ploy and I can't let that escape me.
I'm going to give 10 Cloverfield Lane a B-