They're trapped in a bunker

10 Cloverfield Lane generates low-key tension, but still packs a wallop.

Boasting only the loosest of connections to 2008's Cloverfield, 10 Cloverfield Lane generates plenty of tension before delivering a third-act jolt.

Director Dan Trachtenberg bravely challenges shock-hungry audiences by slowing the pace of a drama in which a young woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) awakens in a bunker built by a survivalist farmer (John Goodman) after her car spins off the road.

Goodman's Howard tells Winstead's Michelle that the US has suffered a terrible attack that has left the atmosphere poisoned. There are no survivors, he says.

Therein lies the source of the movie's tension: Is Howard a kidnapping monster or has the world really been ravaged by aliens or Russians, as he suggests?

Inside Howard's bunker, Winstead's Michelle also meets Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), a young man who helped build the bunker and who was allowed in by the domineering Howard.

At times, the movie becomes a claustrophobic three-hander with the wary survivors trying to get along. They adjust to one another as best they can. They play board games. Howard watches a video tape of Pretty in Pink, perhaps the least likely choice for such a hulking colossus.

Trachtenberg slowly reveals the ways of the bunker, which is equipped with a kitchen and living room area, a pantry where food is kept, separate rooms for Michelle and Howard and an air filtration system that blocks out lethal gasses.

Both Gallagher and Winstead hold their own, but Goodman gives the movie's most compelling performance as a survivalist and conspiracy nut of intimidating bulk.

I won't say more, but 10 Cloverfield Lane deserves credit for not trying to mimic the found-footage approach of the original Cloverfield. You won't get dizzy watching it.

Before it's done, 10 Cloverfield Lane takes an unexpected turn or two. So don't be fooled by a bit of rope-a-dope pacing; by the end, the movie delivers a strong punch.

Lincoln, vampires and big-time blood

This Abe doesn't have it in for Congress; he's off to fight vampires.

If you're a fan of wacked-out movie ideas, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter has just about everything else beat by a mile. The title alone tells you just how crazy this film will be. Consider: Lincoln evidently didn't have enough trouble ending slavery, fighting the Civil War and desperately try to hold the union together, he also had to fight hordes of vampires, who allied themselves with the Confederacy and slavery.

Some things don't need to be parodied, they need only to be quoted, and that's how it is with much of this vividly realized, intermittently entertaining and often ludicrous adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith's 2010 novel. Grahame-Smith wrote the screenplay, and Timur Bekmambetov -- known for the Night Watch and Day Watch movies -- directedmostly to mixed effect.

Not surprisingly, the Lincoln we meet in this action-oriented adventure isn't a mirror image of the Lincoln of history books, unless you happened to be exposed to texts depicting honest Abe wielding a silver-tipped ax and acting very much like a summer-movie action hero. It's Abe vs. one vicious vampire after another as the movie plies its way through quasi-historical waters.

Motivated by vengeance (a vampire killed his mother) and a desire to battle the dark side, Lincoln makes the ax his weapon of choice because of early days spent splitting rails. The story follows Lincoln from his boyhood to the presidency with vampires linking different periods in the leader's life.

Benjamin Walker makes a stalwart if not entirely prepossessing adult Lincoln, a character surrounded by a large supporting cast that includes Dominic Cooper (as a good vampire); Rufus Sewell (as the movie's very bad vampire); Anthony Mackie (as a black childhood pal of Lincoln grown into an ally in the fight against slavery); Mary Elizabeth Winstead (as Mary Todd Lincoln); Marton Csokas (as Lincoln's sworn enemy) and many more.

As you probably can tell, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter is not an A-list production -- at least as far as casting is concerned.

It probably doesn't matter because action tramples character in a story that applies a simplistic moral overlay to its abundant collection of weirdness. Lincoln eventually moves beyond a desire for vengeance to pit himself against an evil that threatens his beloved country, and this Lincoln never wavers in his opposition to slavery.

You get the idea: The movie plays like another big-screen comic book, sketching its story in the kind of broad strokes that make nuance about as welcome as silver bullets at a vampire convention.

Bekmambetov employs CGI to useful effect in creating the movie's 19th century backdrops, and he piles on the action, most notably in a bleary scene involving a horse stampede and a finale that includes a burning bridge and a runaway locomotive.

History buffs will find fleeting historical references -- the Gettysburg address and Emancipation Proclamation -- that presumably are meant to ground a fantastical story in the soil of recognizable history.

If a movie such as this is going to have any credibility, it must be centered on a president who has mythic stature. Lincoln works. Nixon wouldn't.

Although Bekmambetov specializes in severed heads, assorted gore and high octane fighting in which bodies seem to freeze in mid-air, I found the action a bit repetitive. Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter didn't live up to my expectations for something preposterously grand, but it provided a fair measure of unintended chuckles and a bit incidental fun as it tried to swell to mythic proportions.

Michael Cera in a wild new context

Scott pursues the apparently unobtainable Ramona.
We’ve seen too many graphic novels brought to the screen, and we’ve experienced more than enough movies that strain to replicate the dizzying buzz of video games. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World fits into this over-stuffed category, but still manages to distinguish itself from the pack. The movie is a boldly conceived and wildly creative mash-up of graphic novel tropes and just about anything else director Edgar Wright seems to have thought of while adapting a half dozen of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels for the screen.

More than a recreation of graphic novels, Scott Pilgrim is a heady celebration of the form, and if you have any tolerance for this kind of youthful filmmaking, you should have a good time.

Once you know that the movie stars Michael Cera, you also know a lot about its main character. Cera plays the title character, brainy young Scott, a guy who can be funny in a self-deprecating sort of way. It’s hardly surprising that resembles most of the other characters Cera has played in movies from Juno to Superbad to Youth In Revolt. Cera may be a one-trick pony, but he performs the trick with skill.

A small confession: I keep looking for signs of Cera’s maturation. Is this guy doomed to perpetual big-screen adolescence or some reasonable facsimile? Will Cera ever have an AARP card or will he remain in this bizarre ageless state forever?

Like some of Cera’s other characters, Scott Pilgrim is entirely of the moment. He lives with his gay roommate (Kieran Culkin) and has only one real aspiration: to win the heart of Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the girl of his dreams. Scott’s also being pursued by the ultra-determined Knives Chu (Ellen Wong).

When the movie opens, Scott’s dating Knives; he’s 22; she’s still in high school. His friends think he should be embarrassed about the gap in their ages.

Scott also plays in (what else?) a garage band. That adds another up-to-the-minute character to the movie’s mix, Alison Pill’s surly, cynical Kim Pine, drummer of The Sex Bob-omb, a band that sounds a little better than its name might lead you to believe.

A plot of sort drives the pyrotechnics, which are served with numerous comic-book exclamations splashed across the screen.

But about that plot: To win her, Scott must fight seven of Ramona's former boyfriends. This daunting task leads to a series of vividly depicted battles with rivals that include a rock impresario portrayed by Jason Schwartzman.

Familiar to American audiences from two more traditional comedies – Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz – Wright handles the mayhem well, although it must be said that the movie’s rampant creativity seldom abates. So, yes, all the amped-up, exaggerated energy can cause you to burn out on Scott Pilgrim before the movie races across its finish line.

Maybe that was inevitable: Scott Pilgrim’s meaning resides in the many gimmicks over which Wright presides. The movie doesn’t have a style; it’s nothing but style, and it thrives on merging various forms of entertainment and popular culture.

I happened to see Scott Pilgrim the same week I saw Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, a documentary about the New York artist who died in 1988 of a heroin overdose at the age of 28. Basquiat’s art – much praised and highly priced – set a standard for energetic fragmentation that I thought about while watching Scott Pilgrim.

For the most part, the movie’s jazzed up, juiced up images amuse, but they also vanish from memory as quickly as spent fireworks fading from a night sky. Put another way: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World can be fun while it lasts. Quite considerately, I think, it doesn't leave much in its giddy, frenzied wake.