"10 Cloverfield Lane" Review

10 Cloverfield Lane is NOT a sequel to 2008's found-footage monster flick, Cloverfield. I like J.J. Abrams' analogy: "two different rides at the same amusement park." 10 Cloverfield Lane is really only related in name but still affirms the world-building of its predecessor. That is, the possibility and plausibility of a larger parallel universe existing alongside our own - one populated by kaiju from the depths of the sea and aliens from the farthest reaches of outer space.

This is a very different film from what a direct Cloverfield sequel might look like. It abandons the found-footage aesthetic for more traditional cinematography and scales the whole production down from a massive monster attack in New York City to a chamber piece set almost entirely in the claustrophobic confines of a fallout shelter.

The story follows Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a young woman confronted with an emotional conflict that prompts her to leave her fiance, Ben (Bradley Cooper, whom we only hear or get to know by a phone call). On her way out of town, she's run off the road and rescued by Howard (John Goodman), a conspiracy theorist and doomsday prepper. Michelle wakes up in Howard's bunker and is told that the air above ground has been contaminated by a chemical attack and that no living thing remains. Also holed up with them is Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.), a young man who claims to have worked for Howard and knew that the bunker would be safe from whatever happened outside. After Howard sets some strict ground rules such as "no touching" and supervised bathroom privileges, Michelle and Emmett begin digging around and discover that Howard may be a manipulative psychopath. This makes them desperate to plan an escape and find proof of what really happened outside.

The message is in the tagline: "Monsters come in many forms." Michelle especially is confronted with several, and the film is about how she grows and overcomes these demons or "monsters," as it were. The first is personal. She claims that she has a problem with conflict and that she always runs away when she doesn't know what to do. That's tough when you're confined to a small doomsday bunker. The second is her fellow man, and the third is something out of this world. The obvious question that the film poses, however, is "Which is the bigger monster - mankind, or the unknown lurking outside?"

First-time director Dan Trachtenberg and his team of writers (including Whiplash's Damien Chazelle) give levity to both sides of this question. My nerves were shot from beginning to end because I truly had no idea what to expect. Sure, the intimate stuff is more engaging, but the big final act gives ample credence to the three character arcs and finishes in a very satisfying place. This film works extremely well if you take it on its own merits and don't carry in the baggage of what you think a "Cloverfield sequel" should look like. I have no complaints. Just about anything that first seemed off can be explained if you just give the story some thought.

Skip out on IMAX for this one. The scope of the film is far too small to justify the cost of an even bigger screen.

A