10 Cloverfield Lane

No spoilers! Promise!

Remember this time about two months ago when we have no idea that JJ Abrams had produced a sequel to Cloverfield and then all of a sudden there was a trailer and we were all like 'what?!' and now it's here? He's such a sneaky devil. If anyone can pull off making a secret movie it's JJ and Bad Robot. So how do you write a review about a film that was really secret and if you say too much you're going to spoil it? Very carefully.

10 Cloverfield Lane was directed by Dan Trachtenberg, according to imdb this is his first feature film. No pressure!! The screenplay was written by Josh Campbell (4 Minute Mile), Matthew Stuecken, again, according to imdb, this is his first feature film, and Damien Chazelle who wrote Whiplash which was one of my favourite films from 2014.

Time to tread carefully. Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Scott Pilgrim vs The World) has left her boyfriend/possible fiancee Ben (Bradley Cooper - Burnt) although we only hear his voice on the phone. She gets in the car and drives away. A guy on the radio talks about a power outage on the Eastern Seaboard.

In the middle of nowhere which happens to be near Lake Charleston, Florida (thanks Google) she has an accident. Her car flips and lands off the road.

Michelle wakes up and doesn't know where she is. Howard (John Goodman - Trumbo) tells her she's in his bunker. Why? I'm not telling. Also there is Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.  - The Newsroom) who is also there because of reasons.

John Goodman. Multi-award winning actor. Twerker.

That's all I'm going to say plot-wise because that's already in the trailer and I don't want any abuse in the comments so on to some technical stuff.

For those, like me, who almost threw up watching Cloverfield on the big screen you can leave the puke bags at home, there is no shaky-cam! Rejoice!!!

Tension aplenty. This is a tight script and it has so much going on even with the limited space in which the film is shot. I forgot to bring a pen so I could take notes for you fine people but I'm glad I didn't bring one, I didn't want to miss out on anything. Much engagement.

Bunking good fun.

The score was really well done, I thought it was JJ's old pal Michael Giacchino but it wasn't. The composer was Bear McCready who also scored The Walking Dead, Agents of SHIELD, and Caprica. He sounds so much like Giacchino though, uncanny. One quibble about the score, there were times when dramatic things were happening, like a conversation, and the score got in the way. Sometimes silence is better, the audience can work out what is happening in a scene by listening to the dialogue and looking at the actors.

Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs...

There were a few easter eggs in there because this is JJ and that's what he does. There's a scene where Michelle is climbing through the air vents (like in the pic) holding a flashlight. It's very similar to Bruce Willis in Die Hard  and Winstead was in Die Hard 4. That was pretty cool.

It was frikken awesome. I will be seeing it again. It did also feel eerily familiar........... I'm just gonna let that hang there. There's nothing at the end of the credits, I checked.

Things I learnt: learn how to whittle; don't flush if you didn't go; if you have the foresight to build a bunker, update your music library as well.

Yes. Yes. Yes.
Nine out of ten.