Thursday, March 17, 2016

10 Cloverfield Lane in 200 Words or Less

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The bunker quakes, and hard little nuggets of sand and cement shake loose -- the sky is falling, the sky is falling, and all you got was this leg brace and a public pee space to show for it. What 10 Cloverfield Lane does with Cloverfield is dubbed by Variety and its ilk as "universe building" and it's a phrase that's never seemed more apt, as with our own universe the film both expands and contracts -- space itself shrinks as the Big Bad City infested with Big Bads is instead a spider-hole, Shelob's Lair by way of Martha Stewart, where John Goodman weaves deceptions and mug-cozies with equal ease. 

In the meantime the artistry gets great big, shooting off the walls in every direction, pow, pow -- pretty pictures, prettier pictures, deep reserves of performance, emotion, character, spill forth, melting faces. The frame holds, even as sanity, ye old sea-wench, slips. It's only when the outdoors come a'callin' fresh that the good ol' Godzilla tropes come a'stompin', but silliness or no I can always appreciate a good slimy kick-the-space-squids-tail catharsis.
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love your reviews but I always wait for your grades. You have never been wrong for me. Are you giving this one an "A"? My friend says he has read several other reviews or word of mouth that it's great until the last 10 minutes. Reading your review I think I can decipher what happens then and I'm all for it too. Can't wait to see your grade before I go see it.

Jeff O said...

Anonymous, I was thinking the exact same thing. I was reading that thinking, "Man! I didn't know he wrote poetry!"

Jason Adams said...

Aww thanks for the niceties, guys :)

The movie's probably a B+ though maybe leaning towards a B -- it's fun and everybody is very good in it but it does get awfully silly towards the end. Which I enjoyed! But I'm not sure it feel entirely of one piece. It's very good, but basically a very good very well-acted (seriously, all three of them are fantastic in their own ways) episode of The Twilight Zone drawn out to 90 minutes.

Aquinas1220 said...

I loved this movie and have seen it twice already. Those complaining about the "silly" last 10 minutes should have known going into a movie associated with Cloverfield (however much a stretch) what was in store.