The Super Bowl last year offered audiences the first trailer for the secretive next chapter in the “Cloverfield” franchise. I remember I was excited to watch the trailer on YouTube because I had been waiting awhile to hear anything new about the film. Then the real surprise happened hit at the end of the trailer. The movie wasn’t going to hit theaters, instead it was going to premiere on Netflix. Not only that, but the film was premiering that night.
It is hard to convey how insane this whole thing seemed at the time. Never has such a big property bypassed theaters and dropped exclusively on Netflix especially without any indication it was coming. It turned out to be a win for both Paramount and Netflix because the film had one of the biggest premieres on Netflix and was talked about for weeks after. Unfortunately, it wasn’t positive talk. “The Cloverfield Paradox” ended up receiving mostly negative reviews with critics believing the film went to Netflix instead of theaters due to it’s quality. Perhaps this was the case, but I for one enjoyed the movie.
“The Cloverfield Paradox” is the third film in the Cloverfield franchise. Like “10 Cloverfield Lane”, this film started life as a film separate from the “Cloverfield” universe. It was based on a spec script entitled “The God Particle” before being rewritten. One interesting note about this film is that it ties the previous unrelated “Cloverfield” films together. The film’s genre is more of a science fiction film than a monster movie or thriller.
The film focuses on the crew of the Cloverfield Space Station. The crew activates a particle accelerator to help provide power to the Earth but something goes terribly wrong. The accelerator sends the station into an alternate dimension. The crew must try to find a way back to their dimension while facing the horrors the accelerator may have unleashed.
The cast consists of Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O’Dowd, Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, and Zhang Ziyi. Mbatha-Raw gives a strong performance as a conflicted astronaut torn between figuring out her place in the world. The supporting cast is also solid.
Critics hated this movie and while everyone is entitled to their opinion, I never got why they hated the film so much. While there are definitely better science fiction films, there aren’t a lot that are as ambitious anymore. We live in an era where even a thinking man’s franchise like “Star Trek” has been turned into simplistic action fare, so it’s refreshing to see a science fiction film that has some thought put into it. I really liked this chapter personally.
Grade: B+
The cast consists of Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O’Dowd, Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, and Zhang Ziyi. Mbatha-Raw gives a strong performance as a conflicted astronaut torn between figuring out her place in the world. The supporting cast is also solid.
Critics hated this movie and while everyone is entitled to their opinion, I never got why they hated the film so much. While there are definitely better science fiction films, there aren’t a lot that are as ambitious anymore. We live in an era where even a thinking man’s franchise like “Star Trek” has been turned into simplistic action fare, so it’s refreshing to see a science fiction film that has some thought put into it. I really liked this chapter personally.
Grade: B+
No comments:
Post a Comment