Spoilers 10 Cloverfield Lane - Grading & Discussion

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Commander Richard, Mar 11, 2016.

?

Well?

  1. Excellent

    4 vote(s)
    36.4%
  2. Very Good

    3 vote(s)
    27.3%
  3. Good

    2 vote(s)
    18.2%
  4. Not That Good

    2 vote(s)
    18.2%
  5. Terrible

    0 vote(s)
    0.0%
  1. Commander Richard

    Commander Richard Yo! Man! Premium Member

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    [​IMG]


    "After surviving a car accident, Michelle wakes up to find herself in an underground bunker with two men named Howard (John Goodman) and Emmett. Howard tells her that a massive chemical attack has rendered the air unbreathable and their only hope of survival is to remain inside." - Wikipedia

    Just got back from seeing this movie and I found it interesting. It does something a little different with material that you've seen in other movies. Sounds vague but I don't want to say too much. That and it's got Mary Elizabeth Winstead and a great performance from John Goodman. Bradley Cooper has a small role but he phones it in. ;) And while it's not related to 2008's Cloverfield, it's produced by J.J. Abrams and capitalizes on the name. It's a good recipe for getting people into theatres but it's also a gripping ride because you want to know what's going on. So far it's getting good reviews and high scores.

     
    Last edited: May 4, 2016
  2. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    10 Cloverfield Lane

    My Grade: B-



    10 Cloverfield Lane takes place in.... I'm not really sure. Somewhere between Baton Rouge and Houston. Our main character is a young woman fleeing from her boyfriend to parts unknown when she's in a car accident along the highway. When she awake from unconsciousness she finds herself chained up in an underground bunker, "rescued" by a man who claims the outside world has been destroyed by an apocalyptic cataclysm of some sort making the surface uninhabitable, she along with the man (Goodman) are also with another survivor and must stay down there for as long as two years until the surface is presumably habitable again.

    Winestead is dubious to Goodman's claims, mostly from his unstable behavior.

    I'm sure this movie has some connections, in some manner, to Cloverfield but tangentially or in "easter eggs." But, really, the movie has nothing to do with Cloverfield. It was good and suspenseful; Mary Elizabeth Winestead does a great job, as she usually does, but John Goodman does an utterly fantastic job.

    The only "complaint" I probably have is the dicking with you it did when it came to the "threat" outside. Once the characters became aware that Goodman's character wasn't crazy (at least when it came to the threats outside) and just had some social oddities. But it seemed to continue with him being utterly nuts.

    I will say the movie sort-of starts off what could be an interesting series of movies continuing this story with Winestead's character going to Houston to do whatever, dealing with a world in the "Cloverfield Monster Apocalypse."

    The "psychological thriller" in the bunker plays out well but I think at a some point it sort of drags and I think it makes some plot points that ended up going nowhere.

    I enjoyed it and Winestead did a great job with her character and her ingenuity during the climax.
     
  3. MetroKid

    MetroKid Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    C+
    John Goodman was… good, and the photography was very well done. Wasn’t much impressed with the rest of it, but at least I can say I didn’t find any of it offensively bad.
     
  4. MetroKid

    MetroKid Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    Just outside of Lake Charles, Louisiana
     
  5. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    I liked it. Goodman was fantastic and truly frightening in places. The movie itself was perfectly creepy in all the right places. It was exactly what I wanted from it. I really liked Mary Elizabeth Winstead's arc in the movie, it was handled well.
     
  6. STEPhon IT

    STEPhon IT Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It's based on The Twilight Zone episode "Shelter"
     
  7. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    Not really, there's a bomb shelter in it and it shows humanity at its worst. But it's a pretty common trope with bomb shelters.
     
  8. STEPhon IT

    STEPhon IT Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I saw the movie, and the episode; in my opinion its closely, very closely similar to "Shelter".
     
  9. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    Shelter just feels like it's more about wanting to get inside and this is more about wanting to get out. Both are about escaping a threat, but through very different paths.
     
  10. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Okay, then that doesn't make much sense. At the end we see her one of the arms of a "T" junction. Straight ahead the road sign tells her is Baton Rouge, turning left takes her to Houston. But Huston and Baton Rouge are, more or less, directly East/West of one another and Lake Charles is along this line.

    Looking at a map, also, if she was near Lake Charles then she wouldn't have been able to see Houston on the horizon as there's no direct line between the two cities.
     
  11. Cap.T

    Cap.T Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I saw the movie yesterday and thought it was really good. Great direction and performences all around. I'm suprised that the movies soundtrack by Bear McCreary hasn't come up yet here.

    I have to say that I can't remember a movie in the last years that had such an effective and involving score. Especially in the first 30 minutes, it felt like the score was almost like another character. Nowadays it sometimes seems like most movies have just simple underscoring that rarly stands out against all the other things in an audiotrack. So it was really nice to have a movie were the music actually was so front and center.
     
  12. Commander Richard

    Commander Richard Yo! Man! Premium Member

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    I love Bear's work but I didn't notice the score this time around.

    As for the ending, it's odd that Michelle was able to drive freely without incident.
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2016
  13. Commander Richard

    Commander Richard Yo! Man! Premium Member

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    They didn't spell everything out but but we did get enough to figure out what was going on. As I see it, Howard's wife did take his daughter away and since he's mentally unbalanced, he kidnapped another girl, tried to make her a substitute and eventually killed her either by accident or in a rage. Either that or he's even more disturbed that we thought and he never had a real daughter to begin with.
     
  14. Dream

    Dream Admiral Admiral

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    I loved this movie!

    Mary Elizabeth Winstead was the main reason I went to see this. She did some great stuff with the role of a freaked out girl that's trapped in a bunker, she is one of the few actresses that I find both talented and hot. Went in expecting horror got a great thriller instead. John Goodman stole the show. The "aliens" at the end turned out to be the least interesting part of the movie. The only thing that bugged me was that containment suit was BS, and would have never worked in the first place.

    I never saw the first Colverfield, since I hate found footage movies! Should I bother with that?

    Excellent, A, Awesome, for 10 Cloverfield Lane.
     
    Last edited: Mar 16, 2016
  15. Awesome Possum

    Awesome Possum Moddin' Admiral

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    It's a pretty decent movie. It's really a love story told through found footage with a giant monster attack going on in the background. It's like instead of focusing on Godzilla attacking a city, it zoomed in on a few of the people running away. The found footage really sells the absolute chaos and destruction of what it would be like to live through something like that.
     
  16. Tosk

    Tosk Admiral Admiral

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    I was interested to read yesterday that 10 Cloverfield Lane is actually another movie that has been modified to connect to the Cloverfield universe. It was originally called Cellar, which is why no one noticed it coming up even though the synopsis has been out there for years now. The "reveal" at the end was changed to connect to Cloverfield, and they were obviously smart to do so. The movie will make a lot more money now than it would have before.
     
  17. Commander Richard

    Commander Richard Yo! Man! Premium Member

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    This movie isn't a sequel to Cloverfield and it wasn't made to connect to it, although it does contain a lot of easter eggs and a sequel could reveal a connection to the 2008 movie. The director talks about the movie here.
     
  18. Tosk

    Tosk Admiral Admiral

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    It's more a part of the Cloverfield universe than it was originally. (ie: zero.)
     
  19. Commander Richard

    Commander Richard Yo! Man! Premium Member

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    ^ That's true. But so far it's only being described as a "spiritual successor".
     
  20. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Why would they bother including the word 'Cloverfield' in the title if it wasn't intended as a connection?