DIRECTOR Dan Trachtenberg’s film, in an unsubstantiated way, references JJ Abrams’ film “Cloverfield”, a catastrophe drama in which friends search New York for the lover of one of them after a rampaging monster has turned the city into ruins.
Writers Josh Campbell and Matthew Stuecken move the plot south to Louisiana where Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is leaving a marriage that has stopped working for her.
There is a highway collision and Michelle wakes lying on a mattress and chained to the wall of an otherwise bare room. She dislikes her situation then and when a large bearded man walks in and tells her he has chained her for her own good because the world outside has become uninhabitable for a reason not yet revealed, she dislikes it even more.
The big bloke is Howard (John Goodman). When Michelle gets used to his fully-equipped, well-provisioned and hermetically-sealed underground hideout, which they won’t be able to find and if they ever do, won’t be able to get into, her dislike shrinks – but not so much that she stops trying to find a way out.
“They?” What “they” would those be?
Hardly surprisingly, that remains a mystery till the last reel. The discovery diminishes the impact of an otherwise interesting drama for three main characters (Emmett – John Gallagher Jr – who appears later, seems to have prior knowledge of Howard and the hideout).
It’s CG stuff introducing an ill-mannered extra-terrestrial. I have no qualms about providing that spoiler because frankly, the arrival of ill-mannered extra-terrestrials diminishes any film’s value for me and brings on a mild attack of the ab-dabs! We don’t need extra-terrestrial help to make our planet unlivable.
The plot relies on an imaginative but familiar theme – people hiding from an unknown danger or perceived threat. Excess contrivance diminishes the dramatic impact of some of the details. The acting is competent enough. “Potboiler” perhaps over-praises the film, but it’s better than mere hackwork.
At Dendy and Hoyts
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