10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

Remember "Cloverfield"? I'm writing again in a hurry, at 4:30 AM before 2-3 hours of sleep, after which I have to prepare my luggage and get to the plane. So don't ask me to search my blog and check how much I rated it and when I did that. All I remember is that's a forgettable movie. "10 Cloverfield Lane" is a whole different story ...

I had one "serious" reason to watch this movie: I like Mary Elizabeth Winstead (MEW). I did not expect to see much more than the alien invasion shot a la Blair Witch in the first part (I suppose that's what happened there considering the events presented now, because as I said, the first iteration is forgettable). So, what's the story here? A careful fellow (played extremely well by John Goodman), not to say a paranoid one, built a bunker. When the events in the first movie start, he decides to use it. By chance (or not) on the way to the respective compound his path intersects with Michelle (MEW). By hitting her car = so the poor girl ends in crotches, and also in the bunker, because well ... she needed to be rescued. How much was this actual help, how much not, in what shapes the monsters come in this movie (as stated by the poster), who else resides in the bunker, who wants to get in, who wants to get out, and other questions :) find their answers in the movie..

"10 Cloverfield Lane" has something of "Dawn of the Dead", "Shining", "Alien", "Misery", "Panic Room", and maybe others, put together. Not directly referencing them, and definitely not in this order as consistency of material. The dynamic of the movie is excellent. You have a start with lots of thrills that might make you think on Goya's line that "sleep of reason produces monsters" who are more horrible than anything else. After that we have a calm settling, when the sleep of reason doesn't seem exactly a sleep, and therefore it can't give birth to monsters. Just that, towards the end, without notice, to have a shocking blow that brings us to the final and gruesome showdown. But surprise ... that's not the final showdown, where we actually have another type of enemy, and also seemingly some other type of action. You can say that it's still a "run for your life", but I - going back to the list above - have seen an almost instantaneous passing (spoiler) from Jack's wife in "Shining" (much better in MEW's version, as subjective as I might be) to the rebirth of Ripley from "Alien" (much better than Noomi Rapace's version in "Prometheus" for all aspects of that part). And I doubt it can be said we have the same character :) Well, see it and judge for yourself ;) ...

Rating: 4 out of 5