sewerpickles
The whole movie was an awesome experience... almost. What ended up slightly ruining it was the ending. Without watching any of the Cloverfield movies, it definitely takes you by surprise. The idea of the "chemical attack" being perpetrated by foreign military in of itself was already a super cool concept. Instead... it was aliens, and that left a bad taste in my mouth. It made it almost tacky. Besides the ending, the rest of the film is amazing and would totally watch again.
Billy Jason
The first half contained mystery. Is Howard a monster who kidnapping Michelle for his own twisted reasons or is he an awkward good guy who is saving her and emmit's life out of human compassion.. It's an engaging question because weirdness does not equate to badness and maybe Howard will end up being a nuanced character, who despite his many pathologies is a good person inside and need some time and trust to show it. The surprise is there a door number 3. He's a nut and he's saving her. i liked the movie up until that point. Then the movie seems to lose interest in itself. The dialogue becomes loose, cheesy and the characters become horror tropes. the end barely makes sense and you get the feeling it's been rewritten 30 times and they desperately want to wrap it all up in something that is semi plausible. I'll watch just about anything with Mary Elizabeth Winstead. She can sit at a chair and table eating baked beans and I'm in. She was perfect. John Goodman was effective especially in the first half.. The second I saw Emmit i knew he was DOA. They were trying too hard to make him endearing and lovable and he was the barrier between Howard's and Michelle's alone time that the movie definitely was going to make happen. It's disappointing that a movie with so much promise would fail this hard as it went on. If you're bored and want a thriller slightly better than a B movie there are worse things to watch.
Tokana Hennequin
Let me start out by saying that I haven't seen the original movie, so this review is purely based on the movie at hand.I saw this on Netflix and thought that I'd give it a go, especially seeing as I'd missed the beginning on television. I'm one of those people who has to see the beginning! However, with this one, it wouldn't have mattered much.The casting was good, but could still have been better! However, it was good to see John Goodman in a dark role, as we're so used to seeing him in a light, comedic role (at least, I am)!The movie starts off as a mystery (warning: if you don't want spoilers, don't read any further):
A woman wakes up in a bunker and is told by Howard (Goodman), who is a stranger at the time, that the air is polluted and, because of that, nobody else survived, therefore there's no-one looking for her. She is introduced to Emmett and the audience wonders whether or not he's Howard's accomplice. Howard passes Michelle some clothes claiming that it was another girl's clothes, but admits that they're his daughters, who used to love to design, as does Michelle, but her mother turned her against him and took her to Chicago. Michelle finds a picture of the former 'housemate' who is "no longer with us" and questions whether it really is Howard's daughter, or another woman who went missing and was never heard from again. Is Howard just bonkers?It was boring at the beginning, but picked up during the middle. It just lost me by the end, though, as it went from a murder mystery to a... sci-fi. Michelle then goes to combat with no prior combative experience, just because she heard someone's pleas over the radio. What a ridiculous decision!The writers and director clearly didn't have a clear vision for the movie and couldn't iron out the plot holes, or even tie them up in a neat bow! Would I re-watch or even recommend this movie to anybody? No.
