10 Cloverfield Lane Review
“Crazy is building your ark after the flood has already come”
Just as me and my friend were asking ourselves, where the hell is the Cloverfield sequel, the trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane drops and then suddenly the movie was a month away. It was a very short ride on the hype train but here we are just after the release of the movie in the UK. The cool thing about the movie having one trailer, a Super bowl spot and a month until it’s release is that, unlike most movies these days. We didn’t have a clue what was going on in the movie. Is it even a Cloverfield sequel? Is the monster in it? Is it even the same universe as the first film? We really didn’t know and the movie was so much more fun for it. I don’t do spoilers but I will say that this IS technically a sequel and it actually answers some questions I had about the first one. Let’s talk about if it’s good or not though.
Michelle, our main character played by the wonderful Mary Elizabeth Winstead is shown packing up and running away from some drama, it’s not specific but it certainly feels serious and as we go on, it looks like she had a serious fight with her boyfriend. On her way from driving away from her current life she ends up in a big car crash and wakes up in an empty room and tied up by the leg. John Goodman’s character, Howard rocks up and for a while he doesn’t really explain much but eventually he talks more and even invites Michelle and Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.) into the rest of the house, which turns out to be a bunker and Howard tries to convince them that a nuclear explosion or something of the sort has happened outside and they need to stay for at least two years. Michelle isn’t too sure about that plan and as the movie goes on we also see how unstable Howard is. Secrets are revealed and some really dramatic scenes take place that lead to Michelle trying to get back to the open world and finding out if anything has actually happened out there? Which you’ll have to wait and see. The story is pretty simple but like I said with The Witch, it leaves a lot of room to do what they want. Howard is so unpredictable that the atmosphere is very tight throughout the movie and all the scenes in the bunker are either tense, awkward or false.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead is really good in this movie and I’ve been a fan for years now. I love the way the character is written. Women in movies are written in two ways, either really girly and soft or really tough or unrealistically badass because if they’re not soulless beasts, you’re a sexist. But Michelle is so real, she reacts so realistically to her situations, if she’s scared and needs to beg for her life she’ll do it but if she needs to fight for survivable, she’ll shank a bitch. A lot like Ripley in Alien, she’s a human person and not specifically a woman. John Goodman is fantastic in this movie. He’s a broken man with a lot of issues, which become very obviously during the movie. He’s actually pretty scary and I know I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a bunker with him. Our final character is Emmett and he’s the token funny idiot who isn’t that funny. He has some funny parts but a lot of the humour is stuff I’ve seen before so he mostly did nothing for me, he has a little sad part which is all well and good but de doesn’t stand out as well as Michelle or Howard.
10 Cloverfield Lane is pretty well directed and I love how tense the movie is, it can get pretty claustrophobic and there’s a good use or sound. There’s a lot more similarities to Alien than just the main character and it’s actually so smartly an homage since the movie is totally different to Alien. If you haven’t watched Alien in a while you might not even notice them. It actually feels original either way. The most effective thing about 10 Cloverfield Lane is the characters and for a sequel to a movie about a giant monster destroying a city, it’s very human.
So far 10 Cloverfield Lane is my favourite movie this year and not just because of how tense it is, how good the characters are or how much I love the ending sequence but it’s also because I know I’ll see another movie like The Revenant next year, I don’t think I’ll see another movie like 10 Cloverfield Lane for years to come.
Rating *****
Better than > Cloverfield Worse than > Alien (That’s right, I just compared it to Alien, sue me)
Main pros
-Characters/Acting
-Atmosphere
-Ass clenching tenseness
-Refreshing
-The ending
Main Cons
-Emmett Could be better, I guess
Just go see 10 Cloverfield Lane guys, you deserve it.
