Director: Julius Onah
Writers: Oren Uziel (story by), Doug Jung (story by)
Stars: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Daniel Brühl
Plot: Orbiting a planet on the brink of war, scientists test a device to solve an energy crisis, and end up face-to-face with a dark alternate reality.
Running Time: 1 hour 42 Minutes
IMDB Score: 6.5
Why I watched it: Well I was watching the Superbowl saw the trailer and thought it looked decent, didn’t pay much attention after the game I was surfing went to Netflix Canada and saw that the film had dropped after the game so I jumped at the chance to see it right away. Very cool bit of marketing.
Thoughts: Many thoughts here first off the film was shot under the title The God Particle, now we can ask was this film just tweaked to make it a Cloverfield movie was it always meant to be a sequel? Also I think the coolest thing about this movie was the marketing, one trailer and then a few hours later everyone can see it, not months of hype, so it seemed special and also you have to figure it’s going to get a lot more attention than just being thrown out into theatrical release.
What I Liked: This movie is filmed with very good actors and I mean very good to great actors, a true international cast, true they might not be huge stars in the US but this is not a random cast and it’s not a cast full of genre actors this is taking the genre very seriously. Easily for me the cast is the best part of the film, I really liked David Oyelowo, he plays a leader and he does it thoughtfully and he takes care and thinks things out and he’s quiet for a lot of the film. Chris O’Dowd brings the humor and it’s needed cause this is a heavy film, in tone and plot, we’re talking about the world going to war and also add on alternate realities.
I liked the look of the film, the space station is cool, the effects are well done and they do hit that heavy tone, they set up the stakes and they show how important it all is. I also like the fact that it is an international crew and not just Americans cause all the countries have a stake in this mission. The film does go heavy Sci-Fi but it does horror pretty well there is a couple of very freaky and strange set pieces, there’s one with O’Dowd’s arm going into the wall and what happens is very scary and then oddly funny. Really like the dynamic of the group dealing with the pressure and also the fact that they’ve been up in this station a long time, the tension is earned.
What I Didn’t Like: To put it nicely The Cloverfield Paradox is a bit of a mess plot wise and because of that it’s a very mixed bag, this could have been just a cool little Sci-Fi thriller just looking at it reminds me of Life that came out not to long ago and of course Alien springs to mind with this cast it would have a been a decent little thriller but tying it to the Cloverfield films is the film biggest problems, now the hook of the one shot marketing was after 10 years we would get answers and we kind of did but man it falls flat. I’ll be honest I was confused by the end, what did it mean? What did we actually find out? Through the three films we got what monsters, alien invasion, alternate reality. It’s the last one in this film that really muddles the water cause we have to think these monster come from a different reality. Does that make sense, maybe.
I think the main problem is that nothing is made clear and a sub-plot of Roger Davies(husband of Gugu Mbatha-Raw) finds a young girl and saves her from a monster then goes to a shelter seems odd and out of place from the main story. The other huge problem is we have no sense of time-lines here, what happened first, when is now? What came first? The film doesn’t touch on this at all and this film does film like 10 Cloverfield Lane, where it feels like it’s own movie then gets the Cloverfield logo branded on it. There doesn’t seem to be an end game no big arc going through the films, none of the films fit with each other, it feels like three episodes of the Outer Limitless then three movie in a franchise.
Final Thoughts: This is a tough film to review cause for the most part I liked it as a stand alone film, I love Sci-Fi horror and the cast makes it worth watching but as part of a franchise it disappointed me cause I truly didn’t think they answered the questions they said they would answer or if they did it wasn’t satisfying.
Rating: 5/10
Movie Burner Entertainment 