“The Cloverfield Paradox” Movie Review

    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+

“10 Cloverfield Lane” Movie Review

    Once upon a time, there was a movie being developed entitled “The Cellar”.  The movie started life as a popular spec script before being developed at Paramount Pictures.  Somewhere along in the production of the film, the decision was made to link the film to their popular “Cloverfield” franchise since both movies shared some similarities.  Thus “10 Cloverfield Lane” was born.
    So “10 Cloverfield Lane” became somewhat of a curiosity to me.  Very few movies label themselves as “spiritual sequels”.  The film was directed by Dan Trachtenberg who opted to abandon Matt Reeves’ jarring found footage style and shot his film a more traditional way.  The film is not directly tied to “Cloverfield” so you don’t have to watch the first film to understand what is going on in this film.
    Besides the way the movie was shot, another interesting choice was to shift the focus to another genre.  While it’s predecessor was a horror movie, this film is more of a suspense thriller.  I think it served the film overall well.
    The film tells a simple story, after Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) gets into a car accident, she wakes up in an underground bunker with two men who inform her that the Earth is now uninhabitable.  Naturally, she has her doubts.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead does an incredible job dealing with her impossible situation in the film.  The two men she shares a bunker with are Emmett and Howard.  Emmett is played by John Gallagher Jr who had a nice vibe with Winstead.  Lastly, in the most impressive performance in the film, John Goodman plays the ambiguous Howard.  We as an audience don’t know if we can trust him or not and the whole movie hinges on Goodman selling this ambiguity.  John Goodman more than delivers and should have received more recognition for his work.
    The film then comes to an alarming end as we find out if Howard was telling the truth or not.  I won’t ruin the ending for anyone, but it is a divisive way to end a thriller.  I personally enjoyed it but a lot of people were left disappointed with the twist.  So while “10 Cloverfield Lane” may not be as original as “Cloverfield”, it’s also a nice change of pace as well.

Grade: B