The Cloverfield Paradox - movie review
The Cloverfield Paradox
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.
Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Daniel Brühl
Director: Julius Onah
Certificate: 15 (strong threat, injury detail)
Runtime: 1hr 42 mins
Release Date: Monday 5th February 2018
Warning: This review for The Cloverfield Paradox contains mild spoilers. If you have not seen The Cloverfield Paradox and care about spoilers, do not read on.
Well, well, well. Yet again, J.J. Abrams and his mystery box have duped us all. After years of anticipation after the surprise release of 10 Cloverfield Lane, a "sort-of" sequel to 2008's inventive Cloverfield, the Bad Robot production studio work their marketing magic once more with the unexpected drop of the third entry into the Cloverfield universe. I remember that Sunday evening. Some of my flatmates of mine and I stayed up to watch the Super Bowl except I watch it for different reasons to most. Half of my flatmates wanted to watch the game itself and the other half were interested in Justin Timberlake's half-time show. Me, on the other hand, stays up until ludicrous hours in the morning for one thing and one thing only; movie trailers. Yes, I know it's sad but...yeah there's no justification. Amongst brand new trailers for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Avengers: Infinity War and Solo: A Star Wars Story, a mysterious teaser dropped surrounding a group of scientists in space that are trying to solve some sort of crisis on Earth whilst creepy circumstances are making waves within the crew. It was then that the Bad Robot logo appeared and I thought to myself; "It can't be, can it?" And then the cast and plot were revealed that were identical to the reported 'God Particle' movie that was rumoured to be linked to the Cloverfield universe and I thought to myself; "Bloody hell, I think they have!". Finally, the title was revealed - THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX - and, as my flatmates can attest, I lost my freaking mind. And then, to take my exploded mind, fill it with air only to blow it once again, the end of the trailer revealed it would drop on Netflix THAT NIGHT. Not six months from now. Not two months from now. They shot the entire thing in secret and the general public could watch it from the comfort of their own homes as soon as the Super Bowl had concluded. In terms of marketing, the Cloverfield franchise is revolutionary and the films themselves have been of an incredible quality too. Cloverfield was an unexpected success and 10 Cloverfield Lane lived up to the hype. So, how does The Cloverfield Paradox fair? Monumental disappointment does even begin to describe my feelings.
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| No, you're not watching The Addams Family. |
Was the marketing a genius move? Of course it was. My Twitter exploded as soon as that was announced and was the most talked about moment of the Super Bowl. It even superseded the actual football game itself for a brief moment. The hype was through the roof because we believed that, in the space of three to four hours, a new Cloverfield film would be at our fingertips. Little did we know that all of this hype would indefinitely crush our souls and from now on, become wary of this marketing tactic. 10 Cloverfield Lane gave us a couple of months to prepare. The Cloverfield Paradox gave us a couple of hours as a warning. The decision by Paramount to push it onto Netflix was incredibly crafty on their part. The lack of time and surprise meant that they clearly didn't have faith in this product so rushed it out at the most opportune moment. The Cloverfield Paradox isn't a bad film because it fails to live up to the hype or that it wasn't at the same quality as the past two installments. The Cloverfield Paradox is a bad film because it is terribly written and stinks of studio interference. I'll get onto my main gripe later in the review because that's when I fear that the situation may get heated but The Cloverfield Paradox has a lot of problems otherwise. Firstly, it might as well be a Black Mirror episode but an episode that you'd watch just to continue your binge. It's not memorable and not at all good but you watch it because you daren't miss out an episode. The plot of The Cloverfield Paradox is as thus; a group of scientists are sent into space in the hope of solving the Earth's energy crisis. They decide to set off a particle accelerator (because that's always a good idea) and now strange happenings are affecting the crew. Simply put, this film is a mess. The script itself makes no sense and somehow worsens the more you think about it. Getting into spoilers, upon the deterioration of the accelerator, the crew are transported to another dimension in which the Earth has completely vanished. Interesting though it may sound, the level of intrigue peaks there and descends into a territory of pure stupidity. Onah and his writing team deploy the justification for accidents such as; Chris O'Dowd's recently amputated arm walking along on its own accord, Elizabeth Debicki trapped in the ships cooling system with pipes impaling her and a mysterious box somehow finding its way inside a corpse, as it all due to the change in dimensions. No other explanation is given. They honestly just ask the audience to go along with it no matter how idiotic the reasoning is. For me, it seems as if the writers had all of these conceptually crazy ideas and couldn't think of a reason as to why they would happen so quickly put together the whole "different dimension" reasoning.
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| At least someone's happy. |
FACT: Simon Pegg is the voice on the radio at the very beginning explaining how the Particle Accelerator can "solve the world's energy crisis".
To the film's credit, there are a couple of positives to appreciate. Firstly, the visual effects are impressive and fairly photo realistic yet watching it on my television probably didn't have the same effect as it might have had on the big screen. Bear McCreary, who also served as the composer for 10 Cloverfield Lane, has orchestrated another strong score. At least he can be someone we can rely on for the future of the franchise. The film is also led fairly strongly by Gugu Mbatha-Raw as our central focus. She has a difficult dilemma to face during the events of The Cloverfield Paradox and Mbatha-Raw does a good job at expressing her emotional vulnerability. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the rest of the cast who are given absolutely bugger all to work with. These characters are cardboard cutouts to every single space crew that we've seen before and the film even gives us the courtesy to slap on the stereotypical nationalities with them too. David Oyelowo plays the overly heroic, all American captain and is so flat that when he sacrifices himself in the most clichéd way imaginable, you feel nothing. In fact, when any of these characters perish or suffer, the execution and direction is so fundamentally flawed that it's almost humorous. Just for reference for any budding filmmakers out there, I probably shouldn't be laughing when Chris O'Dowd is having his arm ripped off by a wall but when he hardly reacts to it and then asks his now sentient arm, "What are you talking about, Arm?", then I am struggling to take this seriously. Daniel Brühl, one of the most underrated talents working today, is criminally underutilized as he's stuck as the conventional German scientist that is making some risky decisions that other crew members disagree with. The Cloverfield Paradox is the exact definition of 'been there, seen it, done it, got the T-shirt of it'.
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| Big Brother: Space Edition |
And now we crack into my major complaint about The Cloverfield Paradox and it's also to do with 10 Cloverfield Lane. When Cloverfield returned to our screens in 2016, ninety minutes of that film was excellent. I'd possibly consider giving that portion of the film a 10 out of 10. However, the final ten minutes hit, in which Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character escapes the bunker only to find an alien ship heading her way and deploying mutt like aliens to hunt her down. Then, she lights a Molotov, throwing it into the ship destroying it. In those ten minutes, it finally dawned on me. 10 Cloverfield Lane was originally filmed as its own feature under a different title without any connection to the Cloverfield franchise. It was only at last minute when they realised that this film won't attract a big audience unless a brand name could be attached that they then introduced reshoots to change the finale. Aside from that ending, 10 Cloverfield Lane was a brilliant film but it didn't need to be forced into a universe it didn't belong in. The Cloverfield Paradox stinks of the same problem and it's even more noticeable this time round. Firstly, Onah and his team shot this movie under the title of "God Particle" and once again, bared no connection to the Cloverfield franchise. However, when Paramount realised that they had a probable dud on their hands, they called in Abrams to jerry-rig the film to fit into his Cloverfield-verse. The forced connections are so blatant that you can tell that the sequences within the space station were the original scenes and anything else was reshot to link back into the past Cloverfield films. For example, Donal Logue appears as a preachy scientist who forewarns about the dangers of this particle accelerator and calls his theory "The Cloverfield Paradox". He is also rumoured to be related to John Goodman's character from 10 Cloverfield Lane. There are then a couple of scenes intercut with the space station shenanigans where we follow Mbatha-Raw's husband as, presumably, the Cloverfield monster is attacking the city (same as the 2008 original, except they now have fully functioning smartphones. See what I mean when I say that this film makes no sense?), and he hides in a bunker with a random, unknown little girl who is never given any context and we never hear or see them again. I'm not even joking when I say that half of The Cloverfield Paradox plays out as filler while the writers figure out what their actual plan is. And then the ending. Oh, the ending. After escaping their sinister dimension, Mbatha-Raw escapes with Brühl and we see their escape pod disappear into the clouds. There's a brief pause and from the clouds, a larger version of the Cloverfield monster rears its head. Ok. You were already on my bad side movie but after that, you're just pissing me off. So, allow me to unleash my inner Charlie from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and delve into the nonsensical world that Cloverfield now exists in.
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| Me watching The Cloverfield Paradox. |
So basically, the main theory about all of the Cloverfield films is that they each exist within their own separate dimensions. Supposedly, that is why different events are happening in each film but that reasoning makes little to no sense. Firstly, there was the brief surprise at the end of the 2008 Cloverfield in which we see a small object plunge into the ocean that was revealed to be a satellite that inadvertently awoke the Cloverfield monster. Except, in The Cloverfield Paradox, which appears to be taking place at the same time as Cloverfield, a Cloverfield monster is already running rampage in the city yet we see the escape pod plunge down to Earth awakening another monster. Does this mean there are two monsters and what does this have to do with the aliens appearing at the end of 10 Cloverfield Lane? Secondly, there's the whole promise that The Cloverfield Paradox will finally answer how it all began and what started the attack in the first place. It doesn't. I think we're left with more questions because of how incomprehensible this script is. If this multiple universe theory is true then I can't see the bigger picture yet. I'm still hopeful that maybe Abrams is playing the long game and awaiting to reveal what this franchise is actually doing but so far, I'm avidly against the idea of taking already made movies that are in post-production and reshaping them for the sole purpose of adding Cloverfield to the title.
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| When the alarm goes off waking you from the best sleep of your entire life. |
For a franchise that thrived on its ingenuity, inventiveness and creativity, The Cloverfield Paradox throws it all out of the window as it follows a basic premise, generic plot development and some of the worst example of characterisation in years. Removing all of the last minute changes and its surprise release, The Cloverfield Paradox is an awful film through and through. But the issue of its placement in the franchise and causing any theorist to develop a migraine from simply thinking about it is where The Cloverfield Paradox fails most. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that the franchise can actually tie things together and bounce back.
My Verdict: 2/10
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