10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) Review

10 Cloverfield Lane Review

I don’t know why, but as a head’s up, I do not feel the same way as the majority of critics on this movie. It’s really difficult to discuss it in-depth without getting into spoilers, given how secretive the marketing has been. It’s hard to believe we didn’t even know it was coming out until a couple months ago, but here it is. I’ll do my best to sum up my thoughts in a spoiler-free manner. 

Let me begin by clearing up some confusion about what this movie is, exactly. It is not a sequel to Cloverfield. Aside from a couple tiny easter eggs, this movie has nothing to do with the events of the 2008 film of almost the same title. I still stand by on saying 10 Cloverfield Lane is one of the dumbest titles I’ve heard in a long time. This movie should have stuck with its original title, “The Cellar”. Calling it 10 Cloverfield Lane is just a way of cashing in on the success of Cloverfield, and just one of many instances of misdirection that work to varying degrees.

I went into this movie not expecting a Cloverfield sequel. In fact, I didn’t expect it to have anything to do with it, but I’m sure many people will, and they will be disappointed. I was still disappointed, but not for reasons I anticipated. 

First, the positives. This movie has an excellent opening. I can’t really say why it’s so good without spoiling it, so I’ll leave it at that. The music and sound design is great. The acting from all three leads is also great. Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays an intriguing main character who is smart, feisty, and tough. The other actor I’m not familiar with, and while he too gave a good performance, John Goodman is the stand-out. Despite having had many memorable roles in the past, I didn’t see him as John Goodman or any of those other characters, he embodied this off-kilter man who you know has a couple screws loose, but you don’t really know if he’s fully crazy or if he actually is saving them from something sinister outside. There are a couple scenes where he really brings it, and is pretty unsettling.  

The trailer sums up what the majority of this movie is about really well, without spoiling any major plot points. It is as straight forward as it looks: three people trapped in a bunker, because everyone outside is dead from a supposed air contamination, whether from nuclear bombs or extraterrestrials or something else, is not clear, until the end. The story is really straight-forward, and I appreciated the minimalist filmmaking at work. It reminded me of last year’s Ex Machina in a way, by having only three main characters that have no interaction with the outside world for the majority of the movie. 90 % of this movie is like a small, indie horror film. But this brings me to the negative things.

This movie is not scary. As I said, people expecting this to follow up the events Cloverfield will be disappointed. This is an almost completely self-contained movie, and while I liked the way it began and the initial set up of the characters in the bunker, after a while, it started to drag. I was waiting to get some kind of indication of what’s going on outside, and there are a few subtle hints, but nothing very substantial or satisfactory. There was a period where nothing really happened, they were just in the bunker, hanging out, talking. I found a lot of the lack of explanation more frustrating than intriguing. It seemed highly unrealistic that, as the trailer says, Mary Elizabeth Winstead was brought there by John Goodman, and she doesn’t question things enough. After a while she just starts going along with it, and it’s a little unclear how long they actually spend down there together. Something else I found frustrating was the constant attempts at misdirection. I can’t really go into detail on these points without spoiling, but it got tedious by the end and I wanted things to just be clearly laid out.

Now for the ending. Some might love the ending, others might despise it. I liked it, up to a point. One of the aspects of Cloverfield that intrigued audiences was the mystery of what exactly was attacking New York City. 10 Cloverfield Lane has a similar but bigger mystery: what the hell is outside the bunker? The reveal, I was hoping, would be worth the wait, but it just fell completely flat. I was completely disappointed, and honestly, if the ending had been some mind-blowing old school Shyamalan twist, I would’ve enjoyed this movie significantly more.

Another aspect of the movie that fell totally flat for me was the humour. There were many attempts at lightening the mood with jokes, hardly any of which were funny, but there’s one scene in particular where they’re playing a game together, and it’s supposed to be tension-filled then end in a funny “I didn’t see that coming!” kind of way, but it was completely predictable and just made me roll my eyes. Speaking of eye rolling, there were four other aspects of this otherwise realistic story that were really cheesy, one of which was the big reveal, that I just could not buy into.  

I feel much the same way about 10 Cloverfield Lane as I did about Cloverfield. It was a mixed bag, but overall, I didn’t really enjoy it. I didn’t hate watching it, but it’s not something I can see ever wanting to re-visit. However, I’m not straight-up saying you shouldn’t go see this movie. If you like mystery box-type sci-fi movies such as Super 8 (which this movie may or may not be connected to in some way), there’s a chance you’ll enjoy it. It’s reasonably suspenseful throughout, with a Twilight Zone feel, and unlike Cloverfield (sans 10 and Lane), it feels like a real movie with cinematic qualities instead of vomit-inducing shaky cam. As an effort from a first-time director, it’s acceptable. As a sci-fi horror mystery, it’s unremarkable. I can’t say if you’ll enjoy it or not based on your enjoyment or dislike of Cloverfield, but if you were curious about seeing it before reading this review, don’t let my less-than-enthused reaction stop you.