Review: 10 Cloverfield Lane Is A Great Thriller, Right Up Until It Isn't
- Feb 5, 2018
- 1 min read
A bad ending can break a movie. The ending of 10 Cloverfield Lane came all to close.
Following a car crash, Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) wakes up to find herself trapped within an underground bunker. Her self appointed saviour Howard (John Goodman) explains that something has gone terribly wrong and the air outside is no longer breathable. Together with Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.) they must survive, or die trying.
For an hour and twenty six minutes, 10 Cloverfield Lane makes an excellent case for being the best thriller in recent years. The cramped confines and high tensions of its setting make for some excellent moments, John Goodman give what may be his best, and most terrifying, performance and the whole thing is a good kind of unsettling. For an hour and twenty six minutes, 10 Cloverfield Lane was one of the best films of 2016. After that, not so much.
Major Spoilers For The Last Few Minutes.
The praise has come to an end. The finale of 10 Cloverfield Lane is more like something from a Michael Bay film than the cold and calculated film that preceded it. It's about the point that various aliens show up and Michelle goes all Ellen Ripley on them that things go South. What could have been an excellent thriller suddenly becomes a schlock-fest of unprecedented proportions, and for this I hate it.
Do I recommend watching 10 Cloverfield Lane? Yes I do, just switch it off when you get the feeling that everything's finished, not when the movie decides it's done.
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