10 Cloverfield Lane

It's a good movie, but I won't pretend I didn't expect more. In the most tense moments, debutant Dan Trachtenberg can't be as gritty and intense as he should, and in the middle section he fails to pinch the atmosphere the way, say, John Carpenter did in The Thing. There are occasional dead moments, and by the fifth time you're figuring out what's out there, or which of the characters is a nutcase, it starts to get tedious. Never, thankfully, so that boredom sets in, and thanks to John Goodman's impecable performance and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who can do confident damsels in distress like few others, it's still a fun ride where you'll enjoy the twists and surprises. I just think it should have been made by someone who's done some movies before and knows that maintaining a suspenseful atmosphere when there are three people and four rooms on the screen doesn't quite work on its own and needs a little help. (15/05/2017)

A decent series pilot that has no business on the big screen. Logical holes in the narrative vs. powerful moments of surprise and an intense climax, which, however, is only as long as the climax of a TV series episode. A small movie to accompany Super 8, which also didn’t warrant much attention. Not as good as the larger and original Cloverfield (if we’re talking about J.J. Abrams’s projects for the same target audience). (09/04/2016)

An excellent civil science fiction that looks like Saw at first glance, only to turn into a distinctive and very interesting thriller over time. It’s a shame that this thriller gets a brutal bashing from other movie genres in the last 20 minutes and turns into an apocalyptic sci-fi. Hats off for that idea! Although the whole movie feelsvery intimate, I must say that thesemere three actors support the intimacy with great performances, especially John Goodman and then Mary Elizabeth Winstead brings a certain beauty into it. Overall, I have to say that this is a very nice surprise and at the same time a very interesting combination of two completely different ideas. (21/11/2016)

The name really screwed it. Throughout the film, the experience from an excellent chamber thriller drama is disrupted by the world “Cloverfield”; you know what kind of reveal this will eventually lead to. And when it gets there, what follows is disappointment, because the connection with the original film is really only on paper. If the film was called Independence Day 2, it would’ve been the same, if not better. A weak four. (06/04/2016)

With the Cloverfield brand comes a damn heavy burden. The original Cloverfield was able to combine the drama of the main characters with something big and terrifying that was located vaguely far away and at the same time all around. The identically named street has, as always, the believable Mary, in the form of the roaring John Goodman, as well as the question mark about what is hiding outside this time. However, with the main asset also comes the main obstacle, because we all suspect that something unexpected must happen in the final act, which doesn't fit too well with the previous course of events. The formula was only partially repeated, mainly thanks to the actors and a healthy dose of tension arising from the most ordinary situations. And yet the whole thing looks like two films stitched together. (19/07/2016)