“10 Cloverfield Lane” Movie Review

    Once upon a time, there was a movie being developed entitled “The Cellar”.  The movie started life as a popular spec script before being developed at Paramount Pictures.  Somewhere along in the production of the film, the decision was made to link the film to their popular “Cloverfield” franchise since both movies shared some similarities.  Thus “10 Cloverfield Lane” was born.
    So “10 Cloverfield Lane” became somewhat of a curiosity to me.  Very few movies label themselves as “spiritual sequels”.  The film was directed by Dan Trachtenberg who opted to abandon Matt Reeves’ jarring found footage style and shot his film a more traditional way.  The film is not directly tied to “Cloverfield” so you don’t have to watch the first film to understand what is going on in this film.
    Besides the way the movie was shot, another interesting choice was to shift the focus to another genre.  While it’s predecessor was a horror movie, this film is more of a suspense thriller.  I think it served the film overall well.
    The film tells a simple story, after Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) gets into a car accident, she wakes up in an underground bunker with two men who inform her that the Earth is now uninhabitable.  Naturally, she has her doubts.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead does an incredible job dealing with her impossible situation in the film.  The two men she shares a bunker with are Emmett and Howard.  Emmett is played by John Gallagher Jr who had a nice vibe with Winstead.  Lastly, in the most impressive performance in the film, John Goodman plays the ambiguous Howard.  We as an audience don’t know if we can trust him or not and the whole movie hinges on Goodman selling this ambiguity.  John Goodman more than delivers and should have received more recognition for his work.
    The film then comes to an alarming end as we find out if Howard was telling the truth or not.  I won’t ruin the ending for anyone, but it is a divisive way to end a thriller.  I personally enjoyed it but a lot of people were left disappointed with the twist.  So while “10 Cloverfield Lane” may not be as original as “Cloverfield”, it’s also a nice change of pace as well.

Grade: B