Review of 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) by Doodlerman — 22 Mar 2016

It's the kind of movie that's been made a thousand times, but this time in tight quarters, feigning originality. I wanted to love this movie, but I may have been too bound to my original expectations. I expected something much more serious and tensely paced. This movie is cliched ridiculousness. It's done better than most cliched ridiculousness, sure, but it devolves into something so stupid that it can't be forgiven.

John Goodman is good, but not particularly menacing. I guess I have my perceptions of him as a lovable big guy to blame for that, but for the duration of the film, I never felt threatened by him. The writing could be to blame, here. His character is almost immediately too obviously whacko. In his introduction, he doesn't immediately try explaining what's going on up in the world above, but instead makes cryptic statements that sound like he plans on doing horrible things. I know this is the writers' way of building suspense, but it lacks the subtlety to succeed in being suspenseful.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead is fantastic - her character is not. Or mostly not. The character arc is more forced than Sandra Bullock's in Gravity. It frustrates me when apocalyptic movies feature characters telling miscellaneous stories from their pasts as though it constitutes as full-fledged development. It doesn't. I want to see a character develop throughout a movie. Instead, her character's development remains on a steady plateau up until the ridiculous ending where her character takes a complete 180 after the climax. Without spoiling anything, I just want to say, the reveal is stupid. I laughed out loud it was so dumb. I was convinced the movie was trying to end humorously, but it was legitimately trying to be chilling with a reveal so generic.

I have a lot more I want to say about his movie, but only so much time. I might continue writing later.