“Like much of the rest of the world, I was shocked when the surprise trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane dropped. If a movie’s not even on my radar, you know it’s been tightly under wraps. What I loved so much about the original was the mystery. No one knew what was going on with the movie or what it really was or what the name meant or anything. It made for a really fun movie going experience too.
Immediately upon seeing the trailer for Lane I made a decision that I would not seek out any information on it. I’d watch the trailer if it came up, but I didn’t seek it out. With the exception of EW’s article on it, I avoided anything coming up in the usual channels talking about the movie. I didn’t wanna analyze the trailer. I didn’t want the expanded synopsis. I didn’t want to know in advance how it tied in to everything. I wanted to recreate that original magic.
For the most part, I was successful. The article did give the one sentence synopsis that gave more info than the trailer. On the one hand, I was kinda miffed at getting more new info than I wanted, but on the other, it was a really cool sounding premise (which I will not recount here, but you can read it at the top of the movie’s IMDB Page). EW also gave some of the backstory around the film coming together. It originally was completely independent of Cloverfield, and got reworked to fit into that universe. Details were kept under wraps on set. John Gallagher Jr, one of the basically three actors in the film, didn’t even hear the word “”Cloverfield”” or anything hinting at it until at least halfway through filming.
I want to try and maintain the secrecy as much as possible, so I’ll try to be brief and cryptic. I absolutely loved it. The suspense and the mystery was palpable to an extreme that is so rare in the internet age of information. So many questions, so few answers, so much enjoyment. John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and John Gallagher Jr were all fantastic. Goodman in particular was such a treat to watch, in one of the most formidable roles he’s had in years. Winstead I adore, and she provided such a strong female protagonist. Gallagher I’ve talked about before. Anything else I say will come out biased (since he was the original lead in American Idiot, we’ve been over this).
There’s talk that the Cloverfield universe may continue on, and God I hope so. And I hope it’s in this way, where its events are just a backdrop for a very compelling story. You could say that it was kinda shoe-horned in, adding in the (potential) franchise connection. You wouldn’t be wrong, but you wouldn’t be right if you thought that was a bad thing.
10 Cloverfield Lane – \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/”