10 Cloverfield Lane

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:

Above and below, there are monsters everywhere…

#SomeThingWickedThisWayComes

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/

A Good Day to Die Hard

In 1988 the silver screen was introduced to the world’s most reluctant hero, John McClane. A New York police officer who finds himself stuck in a Los Angles skyscraper on Christmas Eve, fending off a dozen or so German terrorists and generally saving the day with the help a desk sergeant, a limo driver and a substandard Rolex watch.
Bruce Willis, hot off the success of Moonlighting, the television series that launched his career was given the role of McClane. The rest as they say is history. However things could have been entirely different if the role hadn’t first been turned down by the likes of Nick Nolte, Richard Gere and Robert De Niro.
The original is not only the best of the Die Hard films but is also regarded as one of the best action films ever made. It has become a legend and was for a long time the yard stick that all other action films were measured against. John McTiernan the director was in the form of his life, having just helmed Predator and went on to make The Hunt for Red October after Die Hard. The film also marked the big screen debut for Alan “shoot the glass” Rickman. A role that put him on the Hollywood map and played a large part in him being cast as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood. However Die Hard has always been more than the sum of its parts. Based on a Novel by Roderick Thorp, it was at the time a unique story that didn’t open to much hype or fanfare. By today’s standards didn’t set the box office on fire. Its worldwide gross was less than one hundred million. Where it really started to gain traction via word of mouth was when it hit the video rental and retail stores…..

Twenty five years later and we find ourselves on the fifth film in the franchise. Twentieth Century Fox, knowing when they’re on to a good thing seem to keep throwing money at screenwriters and directors until they either relent and realise that “everybody has a price”. This also seems to be true of Mr Willis. After the third film Bruce went on the record as saying that he didn’t feel he could do anything else with the character. I wish he had stick to his principles as the forth and now fifth film are basically shadows of what came before.
You do get the feeling that Mr Willis is acting on autopilot in this film and is it’s being treated as an exercise in how to earn as much as possible with as little effort as possible.

The majority of this most recent Die Hard film, which, in my humble opinion should have been called “Five Hard” takes places in Russia. McClane travels there to try and reconnect with his rebellious son, played by the Australian actor Jai Courtney, who as it turns out happens to work for the CIA and is trying to stop a nuclear weapons heist. And as plots go that’s about it. There are a few twists and turns along the way, including some signposted double crosses but this really does fall into the “leave your brain at the door” film category.
The Irish born director John Moore has been let loose with Hollywood films before with such grand and majestic titles like Behind Enemy Lines, Flight of the Phoenix and Max Payne but they’ve never really set the critical or box office world alight.
I think because of this and the fact Fox came along and said “would you like a crack at the fifth Die Hard film?” Mr Moore decided that he’d just take the script Skip Woods had provided (another Hollywood devotee that probably had could do better written on his high school report card) and use the Spinal Tap methodology and just turn up everything up to 11.
There are two major action set pieces in the film. The first is a car chase through the streets of Moscow that takes place in the first act of the film. The second is in the film’s third act climax and looks like it could have been storyboarded by a five year, who’d just been given a toy helicopter and truck for Christmas. Both set pieces seem to want to try and distract you from the fact the story is weak and the screenplay is so frail it could best be described as suffering from an asthma attack.

The other problem with the film is the McClane character. In the first three films at least, he was very much doing what he’s doing because he has to. In the last two films you really get the feeling that he’s doing this because he wants to. The reluctant hero has either started to believe his own press or he has taken out a life insurance policy that only pays out if he happens to be shot by an Ak47 or taken he’s taken out by an explosion involving Semtex.  The problem is I keep having to come back to is the plot and the fact that there isn’t one in his movie. The forth film was about digital terrorism and trying to reconnect with his daughter. The fifth and current film centres on nuclear terrorists and trying to reconnect with his son. Not much of a leap when it comes to being creative as you can see.
I’m certain that there will, in the not too distant future, be a sixth Die Hard film and I can only hope that instead of just asking anyone to come up with a screenplay the executives at fox actually realise that you can’t just throw money at a problem to fix it. It doesn’t matter how big your bangs are or how many rounds of ammunition the production gets through, you have to have a story that works. However I do feel that the next film will take the path of least resistance and the plot will be written with the mantra “if it aint broke, don’t try to fix it” in mind. If I were a betting man I’d take myself off to my nearest bookmakers and have a five pound bet that John McClane has a twin brother that will turn out to be the villain of the piece and Bruce will end up playing both parts.

Sometimes the old adage of less is more can actually work. As I said at the start the First Die Hard film is regarded as an action classic and it doesn’t have that many big set pieces in it. In my opinion films will only work if you can hold the audiences interest and A Good Day To Die Hard didn’t hold mine at all. There was just too much going on without anything happening at all.

Twitter Review:
Trilogies are much better when they don’t have five parts. Overblown with a plot and script that are MIA.
#SayNoToSix

Useful Links:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1606378/?ref_=sr_1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVkzZD92cMQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61UqRmDjwgc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qxBXm7ZUTM   (How it should be done!)