10 Cloverfield Lane Review

The fact that the subtitle for this film was not "Terror has a New Address" makes me extremely upset

     So I went to see 10 Cloverfield Lane today because I had nothing better to do with my time, and the fact that it was at the "Dollar and Fifty Cent" Theater didn't hurt anything either. Naturally I never saw the first one, so I don't know if this is an improvement or not, but seeing as how this wasn't a found footage film, I have no doubt t'was an improvement.
     The story is that Michelle is running out on her boyfriend when she is knocked out in a car accident. She awakens chained to the wall, not by her clingy boyfriend, but by John Goodman. He tells her that the world has ended due to some sort of attack (The Ginger Uprising finally happened!) and that the only reason they are alive is that they are locked in his survival bunker, along with an Emmett (Not from the LEGO Movie sadly), a slightly dense but well meaning fellow. Michelle naturally thinks that John Goodman is a crazy person, and tries to escape, but soon realizes he was right after seeing a woman die outside from fallout. The film then follows the three about the bunker with Michelle and Emmett discovering John Goodman is possibly a bit nuts.
    The film is pretty good for the most part, mostly held together by excellent performances from the three leads. I especially liked Michelle, a very smart lead who is constantly coming up with plans to outfox John Goodman and they are quite clever for the most part. One issue I had with the movie was the fact that she and Emmett did not simply hit John Goodman over the head and steal his gun like Emmett once suggests. It wouldn't be easy sure, but it seems a bit simpler than what they do eventually decide to do. Also, how were they both going to escape using her plan?
Additionally, The last ten minutes or so, while not bad, I felt were just so contrary to the mood established by the rest of the film they were utterly out of place. This gets into spoilers a bit, but I would simply have cut out the stuff with the creature. Oh well, I am no script writer, I just write lots of other things. Overall it is actually a pretty decent film, with good performances and a creepy atmosphere. It also has the scariest game of scatergories ever put to film. If you have some time to kill, well there are better things, but there are also worse things. I guess what I'm saying is that if you are trapped in an underground bunker waiting for the fallout to go away, this is a decent enough way to pass the time.
3/5
-Captain Joshua