Hello dear reader, its film time again and as you can tell from the poster above, it’s a film that will fall into what I like to call the ‘Marmite’ category. And by that I mean that it’s either going to be a film you love or a film that you will actively avoid. This can also be said of its predecessor, Cloverfield.
Back in the latter half of 2007, a trailer appeared for what turned out to be the Matt Reeves monster movie Cloverfield. It was attached to the start of the first Transformers film and it basically did two things. Firstly it proved that even in the early stages of social media and internet spoiler’s, it was possible to make a film that was not only under the radar but also make a film that some Hollywood studios didn’t even get wind of. Secondly, for the better part of the three months between the first trailer going viral and the film’s release, it nearly broke the internet. If you go to YouTube and just type in ‘Cloverfield’, there is page after page of fan theories and conjecture. I can’t think of a marketing strategy and plan that was executed better, when it comes to film.
Now, I mentioned that Cloverfield is the predecessor to 10 Cloverfield Lane, which in some ways is true. However, both films are neither a sequel or a prequel to each other. The best description I’ve read about the two is that they are blood relatives. But for those of you who are preparing a trip to see 10 Cloverfield Lane, I will say this. They are both very different animals. Cloverfield is, and the statute of limitations on spoilers has well and truly expired here, is a movie about a monster, from somewhere, that has decided to rip Manhattan a new one. 10 Cloverfield Lane most definitely isn’t.
Do you ever go into a cinema, with expectations of what you’re about to see and then have someone completely pull the rug from under your feet? It doesn’t happen to me that often and I think the last time it did happen to me was with Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, which I went into thinking I was about to watch a visually stunning science fiction epic, which for the most part it is. But fundamentally it’s a (small spoiler alert) ghost story. The reason I bring this up is because I had some preconceptions about what 10CL would offer up but what I wasn’t anticipating was just how dark the film was going to turn out to be. And by dark I mean its tone, not its lighting. To quote Ren and Stimpy, it is not a ‘Happy happy joy joy’ film at all.
As for the film itself, I’ll start with the basics. It has a cast list of eight, yes eight. And three of those are only heard as voices. The more observant of you will pick up who Ben on the phone is played by and will realise that it’s not first time he’s been in a film with John Goodman. John himself shares the screen for most of the film with John Gallagher Jr, who is probably most famous for being in Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. For many Mary will be an actress who they are not familiar with but she has acting since the late 90’s and has been in Scott Pilgrim vs the World, Tarantino’s Death Proof and the last two Die Hard films, to name but a few. However, as good as those two actors and the performances they give are, they are both put in the shade by Mr Goodman. He plays Howard, an ex-Navy man with a survival fixation. He’s spent the prevailing years building a bunker next to his home, believing that an attack, whether its nuclear, chemical or military in nature is a forgone conclusion and it’s only a matter of when, not if, before it takes place. Howard isn’t evil however he runs the bunker with a very authoritative regimen. ‘His bunker, his rules.’ Although he isn’t evil Howard, is a very unbalanced man. Going from calm to angry in the blink of an eye.
Mary’s character, Michelle, finds herself waking up in the bunker after being involved in a car crash. Howard has tended to her wounds, put her on an intravenous drip and provided food for her. He then tells her that the air outside has been poisoned as the result of an ‘attack’, which could have originated from outer space and as such she cannot leave. Mary, understandably, doesn’t believe a word of this and promptly puts plans into action, to try and escape back to the outside world. Now, without going into spoiler territory, there is reveal and counter reveal. As I mentioned earlier, the tone of this film is very dark and at times can be uncomfortable to watch. Its’s also worth pointing out that as with The Abyss, 10CL is a tight, claustrophobic, character driven piece that takes a big left turn about three quarters of the way through. It’s been less than twenty four hours since I’ve seen 10CL and I still can’t work out if it’s a film I want to see again. I did enjoy it and I think it’s well worth everyone’s time and effort to go and see it. I just can’t work out if I want to watch John Goodman being Howard again.
As with Cloverfeild, 10CL only appeared a short time before its release. Although there was an even shorter gap between acknowledgment of the film even existing and it taking up schedule space at the local multiplex. The first and only trailer for it was unleashed in mid-January this year (2016) and again, as with Cloverfield, was attached to a Michael Bay film, that being 13 Hours.
Whilst JJ Abrams was playing director on a small independent sci-fi movie last year, he also had his producer hat on for Paramount. Just an aside here, if you have a spare couple of hours spare, take a look at JJ’s profile on IMDB’s website. He must have an at best, cursory relationship, with sleep. With his supervision, first time film director, Dan Trachtenberg has turned in a film that could be defined, in years to come, as a good base camp to start out from. It’s been eight years between these two films and I wouldn’t mind betting at some point in the future there will be a third. I’ll be keeping an eye on what the internet says JJ and Paramount are up to in 2024 and by then, who knows, we may have reached a point where someone at a major studio is prepared to do the film equivalent of Beyoncé and actually release a major Hollywood film with no build up, no trailers and no marketing and just casually announce that its opening tomorrow, ‘go see it’.
There are a few things wrong with 10CL and a couple of plot devices that are, in my humble opinion, just a little bit lazy, when it comes to screenwriting. I can see the ending being a problem for some as it offers a promise of things to come that we almost certainly won’t see, at least not yet and the three main characters, on which the film hangs itself on, don’t always feel like they are being that smart. A solid four out of five but may leave a bitter aftertaste…
Twitter Review:
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Useful Links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179933/?ref_=nm_flmg_prd_7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saHzng8fxLs
http://www.empireonline.com/movies/10-cloverfield-lane/review/
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