9 Cloverfield Drive

Wow. Its good to see John Goodman hasnt been laying off the midnight twinkies. And that chick from Scott Pilgrim vs. a bunch of better looking dudes hasnt changed her swag at all.

Yeaaaa. Remember her? The super sexy super talented chick whose name you dont know. There are a million women who fit that description, but this one actually has talent. 

The second movie I have seen her in and boy did she impress. I am a man of the people, so naturally I say, give them what they want. I seriously doubt the people want to see this hot chick standing next to John Goodmans fried chicken belly.

If you have ever had the displeasure of following the show the Newsroom past season 2, then you would be very familiar with the supporting actor John Gallagher Jr. I like this guy. I have only seen him in this movie and the Newsroom but both were drastically different roles that he commanded a solid performance in. 

Just in case there are any blind people out there, Bradley Coopers voice was featured in the movie. 

Now that Ive outlined the canvas, it is time to stick on some meats. In this day and age it is all about profit. Can you at least make your money back? If you can that is grounds for a franchise deal. If you can't, well then, maybe just try a sequel see how that one goes. A big round of applause goes to whomever coordinated the finances of this movie. It cost around $15 million to make this movie, by todays standards that is on the low side. It would have cost them $5 million, but it takes a lot of catering to get John Goodman in the mood for his scenes. The movie came out March 11th, a couple weeks ago, and it already has made $53 million at the box office. I am not saying that $53 million is a lot for almost three weeks, but it is when you consider the budget was almost a fourth of that and it is still in theatres. 

The movie had some big success's mainly, the performances of its three characters. John Goodman was electric in this movie. His performance alone made this a watch-list movie for me. He commands every scene he is in with a deep bravado. Lets hope I used that word right. As much as I like say John Goodman is fat, he is fucking fat, he is enormous, he is fat fucking beluga whale, fat, just fucking fat, huge. He is a great actor. He plays his character so well that in the middle of the movie he has you questioning everything youve seen, and wondering what lies deep beneath those cake layers. Goodman is everything you want and more as his character in this movie. Mary Elizabeth Winstead also has a strong performance. I don't consider her to be a great actress but she is definitely talented. Only reason I don't put her on a pedestal is because I havent seen enough of her yet. The fear she portrays in the film is contagious. You might find yourself frantically curled into a ball in a lot of her solo scenes. John Gallagher Jr. in his role is decent, but his performance was under the huge shadow of his two other cast mates. I felt like the weaknesses of this film really hurt Gallagher when he was on screen, by no fault of his own. Not a lot was going for him in the movie, he still deserves recognition.

The last success that I wanna talk about is both a weakness and a strength. The movie has a dynamite concept. I read the plot description a while before it came out and it drew my gaze, enough to make me anticipate its release. The writing was strong in the first half of the movie. I'm into writing, Really Brian I would have never thought, yea it may come as a surprise but I am a fan of writing. A lot of the time when I watch movies I really pay attention to dialogue and spoken lines. It is a gift and a curse, if I go into Batman v Superman with my critique cap on I am destined to hate the shit out of that movie. But unlike superheroes, my powers can be shut off and on at will, its called a brain. As I was saying, 10 Cloverfield Lane had good enough dialogue and exchanges between characters in the first half of the film. Where everything started to fall apart was right around halftime. 

Spoilers are coming, not good ones either, I am basically going to reveal major plot points without a good description. 

So about halfway through the movie our main character Michelle manages to steal keys to bunker exit/entrance from Goodmans character. Lets not get into the fact that this scene is by far one of the worst in the fucking movie. It features a classic cliches and an overused film concept that has been dead for 20 years. So a little background here, there in a bunker Michelle tries to leave because she randomly wakes up in there and doesnt trust Goodmans cupcake eating gut. She steals his keys to the main entrance and runs up the stairs to unlock the door. Now here comes my big problem, what happens next is Michelle frantically tries to unlock this hatch door which leads to a make shift airlock and another door that leads to the outside world. As she is trying to unlock the first door, Goodman takes not even kidding almost 2 and a half minutes for his type 2 diabetes thunder thighs to climb the stairs as michelle just barely gets the door open and locks it behind her. Seriously, how many fucking movies have a scene exactly like this. Exactly the same. Just stop doing it, it makes 0 sense. Goodman in the movie is a doomsday prepper of sorts and according to him the air outside in toxic/contaminated . He makes a big deal out of it too. Throughout the entire movie he is talking about it. So theres some dumb girl with your keys to your doomsday shelter and she is about break the air seal and let in all the toxic air that you have been talking about for 45 minutes. I don't care how fucking fat you are it doesn't take anyone that long to climb stairs. From that point on I really didnt enjoy the movie. 

To be fair the movie is fine, except that scene, and the final 30 minutes of it. Gallaghers character and Michelle hatch a plan to make a hazmat suit, steal the fatmans gun, and go outside to find help. Well somehow randomly they get caught. Goodman just randomly finds a pair of scirrors. A pair of fucking scirrors. A pair that was taken from a kitchen cabinet very easily, and at the point they were found, Gallagher and Michelle had no use for it. Put the fucking scirrors back. I am not getting mad at the characters here, the writing is just garbage here and the last 30 minutes. Your in basically a two bedroom apartment with diabetic borderline personality disorder person, 0% chance if this happened in real life, anyone would get caught with the scirrors. This isnt real life man its a fucking movie how dumb are you? How dumb are you. The point of good writing is to make you feel like what your watching is actually happening. You know effect when your reading a good book and you just lose track of time? Of course you don't, the last book you read was Horrible Harry. Writing is good when you can take the situation out of its universe and plant it into your own with minimal hiccups. Think about good western movies, the abe lincoln movie, that movie Troy with the Pittman. The language sounds authentic and if it is a good enough overall you might even think your there in the scene with them. Good writing doesnt accomplish that by itself. You need other complementary aspects. Good directing, lighting, setting, and of course acting. Lighting and setting dont mean shit by when they are done well it really enhances the movie. That leaves us with good directing, good acting, and good writing = a great movie. Well this movie had one of those things and I already told you which it was.

The directing was absolutely garbage. In terms of the camera side of directing. Placement, fades, effects, transitions, and shots. This movie had none of that. The best shot in the movie was one of the first scenes where Michelle is driving in her car, its an aerial view of her car on the country side/woodlands. Other than that they are no artsy shots or really any of the things I mentioned earlier in the paragraph. There is a lot of montage shooting which I hate because again it is another overused film concept. I was so disapointed in the director because all those things I talked about really make a difference in the emotions you feel when your watching a movie. It draws you into the scene. Tarantino, Hitchcock look up those guys films if you dont understand what I am talking about. A movie is story telling and you want to grasp your audience from the opening scene to the ending credits. Being creative with the camera is crucial.

The last thing I want to talk about before I grade this sucka is the ending. I don't even know where to start with this. If the movie had abruptly faded to black, that would have been a better ending then the one they chose. I don't hate the aliens angle. But the execution was disgraceful. It seemed as if they just ran out of time with the final 20 minutes and threw together an ending during the lunch break. The fucking Aliens are... I dont even know how to describe this... the aliens are ships. Or planes, battlecrafts, I don't know maybe giant flying space worms. Who fucking knows you don't really get a good look at it. The best view is the totally plagiarized shot from the Pirates of the Caribean movie. 

The alien literally does the same thing has an anus mouth thing going on and just spends a ridiculous amount of time with its ass mouth right in the characters face. Finally, she defeats whatever the fuck it was and manages to get a working car. On the radio she hears a broadcast asking for civilians to go one way and people with medical or military experience to go another. I wanna quickly break down the stupidity of the broadcast. It says blah blah military/medical people come to Houston, we need your help. Almost seconds later it says we are taking back the southern coast, we are winning. Why the fuck do you need more people to come fight when your taking back the southern coast and your winning. That makes no sense. That is literally the last thing they would want people to do, just drive across Lousianna risking your life because there is a chance there are other alien worm ships/planes. And Its not like they say get to New Orleans, there like go to fucking Houston. How the fuck is Houston part of the southern coast anyway? Ok nevermind I just looked up where Houston is. Last thing here guys, this fucking bitch decides to go to Houston. Why? You have zero medical training and zero military training. They dont need or want you there. Was that to show growth in the character she is not running away anymore? Thats what they were going for, but again makes no sense. Not in the military, not a doctor, she cant help in any way whatsoever. Its just stupid, awful, awful ending. I getting tired, and ragging on a pretty good movie is putting me to sleep. I think I talked about everything I wanted to.

I give this movie C+. If it was not for the acting it would have been a fucking F, for that dog shit ending they threw in my face.