Ten years ago, JJ Abrams produced a found footage movie called \u201cCloverfield\u201d. Frankly, I was not a fan. Sure, the concept was unique, the creature design for the monster was great, and the cast was made up of top notch up and comers. That being said, it was a JJ Abrams production, and JJ loves, loves, loves, LOVES for his projects to be complete mysteries to the public, including what the hell the movies are about. The advertising to \u201cCloverfield\u201d was so misleading, there was even a theory that it was actually a secretive, live-action adaptation of Voltron! In my humble opinion, the movie was just a cluster mess of shaky cam, and as good as Abrams\u2019 intentions were to create the American version of Godzilla, I simply can\u2019t get past the fact that the movie looks like the cameraman drank four shots of Espresso coffee that was filtered through with Red Bull instead of water.<\/p>\n
Two years ago, another little flick called \u201c10 Cloverfield Lane\u201d was released. It was vastly, vastly, VASTLY superior to \u201cCloverfield\u201d in every possible way. With it, we got a great and frightening performance by the usually cheery John Goodman, a smart, self-sufficient, female protagonist with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and a \u201cwhat a twist\u201d ending that would make M. Night Shyamalan proud. But it also created the \u201cCloverfield Franchise\u201d, in which a series of anthology movies are made with very loose ties to one another, mostly with the name \u201cCloverfield\u201d, and apparently a Japanese soft drink (look it up). Sadly, this idea is proving to be a giant misstep. Outside of \u201c10 Cloverfield Lane\u201d, these movies are not on par with anything produced by \u201cBlack Mirror\u201d or \u201cThe Twilight Zone\u201d.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re now in the third installment of the \u201cfranchise\u201d, this latest movie has gone through a series of titles, from \u201cGod Particle\u201d, to \u201cCloverfield Station\u201d, to now \u201cCloverfield Paradox\u201d. Not to mention the movie had no marketing to it whatsoever, and the release date kept on being moved around. Yeah, whenever a movie has production problems like this, that\u2019s not a good sign. Oh, and there\u2019s already a fourth movie made, currently entitled \u201cOverlord\u201d, and it will have something to do with zombie Nazis. Sorry, but Zack Snyder already beat you to that with \u201cSuckerpunch\u201d. In case you haven\u2019t noticed, no, I didn\u2019t care for this latest installment of the \u201cfranchise\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Cloverfield Paradox\u201d is about a space station in orbit that is trying to use a particle accelerator in order to fix an energy problem that\u2019s happening on Earth, in the year 2028. Aboard said space station are character actors such as Gugu Mbatha-Raw (who I loved and adored in \u201cBeyond The Lights\u201d), David Oyelowo (as the ship\u2019s captain, no less), Daniel Bruhl (Baron Zemo!), Chris O\u2019Dowd (because comedic relief), Ziyi Zhang (because Chinese market), and Elizabeth Debicki (who is freakishly tall, yet strangely and otherworldly beautiful at times). Sadly, with all this talent in front of the camera, none of them are given much to work with for any of them to give a standout performance, save for one monologue that Mbatha-Raw has near the end of the movie.<\/p>\n
Getting back to the \u201cplot\u201d, the crew fire off the particle accelerator, which apparently sends them into an alternate dimension, where apparently the laws of physics don\u2019t really matter, leads to weird things happening without any apparent reasons why they are happening besides \u201coh, look at these odd visuals we made, aren\u2019t they cool?\u201d. I\u2019ll answer that for you, no, they are not cool. Said visuals range from nearly ripping off the chest bursting scene from \u201cAlien\u201d, to a sequence involving O\u2019Dowd\u2019s arm that jumps around in tone from creepy to hilarious, to being a poor man\u2019s \u201cEvent Horizon\u201d in terms of body horror. There\u2019s even some of \u201cSunshine\u201d mixed in for good measure. In other words, this movie is a Frankenstein’s monster that doesn\u2019t know what it wants to be, because it\u2019s \u201cborrowing\u201d from every movie before it, except every movie before it was done better.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a small spark of good ideas in this movie. The world is going to war over energy, that\u2019s good and kind of relevant. Alternate dimensions and worlds, it\u2019s being overused thanks to the CW\/DC TV series, but the possibilities are endless. A surprise return of the Cloverfield monster, that\u2019s welcomed, but it\u2019s just throwing a bone to the fans of the original movie, and nothing more. Seriously, with all the potential you can do with this \u201cfranchise\u201d, you make a generic space station movie with the crew dying one by one through supernatural incidents. That\u2019s been done time and time again, and you\u2019re not providing anything new with this movie. Big budgeted sci-fi movies have done it; smaller, indie sci-fi movies have done it. Just because you slap the \u201cCloverfield\u201d name to this flick doesn\u2019t make it anything special.<\/p>\n
What really annoys the hell out of me is that Netflix was sold a bill of goods by Paramount, the studio that was originally going to release this movie in theaters. I can respect Netflix for airing the movie right after the Superbowl ended, as it is a bold move that challenges the usual media circus that happens before, during, and after the \u201cBig Game\u201d every year. But beyond that, Paramount was in the right to get rid of this stinker of a movie. Now I\u2019m worried for \u201cAnnihilation\u201d, another sci-fi movie that Paramount sold the international streaming rights to Netflix before the American theatrical release. Granted, \u201cAnnihilation\u201d has a far more talented writer and director helming it, and it\u2019s not just another installment of a film series with no real goal or endgame to it. Unless one of these Cloverfield movies is going to end with a big reveal of all the remaining characters from each movie coming together, Avengers-style, to fight the big bad monster, what is the point of these movies besides jerking the audience around?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Cloverfield Paradox\u201d gets a pitiful 2 out of 5 stars, and that\u2019s being generous, and based mostly on how good the space station design is, and two moments where Mbatha-Raw gives a legitimately great performance. Don\u2019t bother with this movie. It doesn\u2019t do anything all that original with the space station horror genre. It doesn\u2019t even tell a coherent story, when you stop to think about it. It\u2019s more like a string of ideas, but there\u2019s nothing connecting them together. I feel bad for everyone who had anything to do with the production of this movie, and I feel even worse for Netflix for spending the money to get it onto their service and then advertising for it during the most watched television event of the year. Watch \u201cBeyond The Lights\u201d instead. Mbatha-Raw gives a far better performance in it, she\u2019s beautiful through out the flick, and she wears cropped tops or bikini tops in nearly every scene. Or watch \u201cCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon\u201d, \u201cSalma\u201d, \u201cCaptain America: Civil War\u201d, \u201cThe IT Crowd\u201d, \u201cGuardians of the Galaxy: Vol 2\u201d, or anything else that these actors have starred in, because even the worst movie they have starred in before this one, is far superior. *exhales sharply* How was that for rage-filled rant<\/p>\n
Featured image: Movie poster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ten years ago, JJ Abrams produced a found footage movie called \u201cCloverfield\u201d. Frankly, I was not a fan. Sure, the concept was unique, the creature design for the monster was great, and the cast was made up of top notch up and comers. That being said, it was a JJ Abrams production, and JJ loves, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film"],"yoast_head":"\n