Review: 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE

Incorrect Address. Turn Around And Leave.

1/2 reluctant star

Mini Review:

A really pathetic movie that tries so hard to be the Oscar winning Room and a Science Fiction movie about alien attack that drives your patience to the ground.

Main Review:

If you decide you want to see this movie because you watched the original Cloverfield (2008), where you watched a giant monster attack New York, then you are going to wish it would show up sooner to gobble them all up.

This film too has been shot in the same hand-held camera style, but only in the beginning. Just becomes a really poor version of Room, with John Goodman as the one who imprisons the heroine (who seems to be blessed with lots of presence of mind and is ready with all kinds of solutions to her situation), and there are hints and clues strewn all around that he has done this before. John Goodman is rough, conspiracy theorist living at a remote farm. The bunker he imprisons the heroine is like a well-stocked apartment, only underground. Just like a scene from the original film there are shelves of stocked food (see, how hard I’m trying to keep the connect?). Besides that, the bunker is equipped with an air filtration system, a garbage chute, water to bathe, a rec room…

There is another resident in the bunker, a farmhand who corroborates the story of alien attack that John Goodman has fed her. As expected, she pretends to fit in and tries to run away at every single chance she gets.

Had this character the John Goodman plays been half as suspicious as he is supposed to be, half as experienced as he is in abducting people, then he would have seen the heroine act suspicious, surruptitious and sly. The ‘acting’ was so groanworthy, you began to wish John Goodman would catch her and hit her.

The twist can be seen from a mile away: who asked you to name the film ‘Cloverfield’? Not clever at all. If you do drive into the multiplex where this is playing, reverse the car and drive away. 10 Cloverfield Lane is clearly a wrong address.

(this review appears in www.nowrunning.com)