10s Movie Review - The Cloverfield Paradox

Director: Julius Onah
Genre: Adventure/ Drama/ Science Fiction
Runtime: 102 minutes
Year: 2018
Starring: Daniel Brühl, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Chris O’Dowd, John Ortiz, Aksel Hennie, Ziyi Zhang, Elizabeth Debicki, Donal Logue

I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2020 MOVIE CHALLENGE.
WEEK 22: A MOVIE WITH A.I. IN IT

Description: 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.

Review: Without any big marketing campaigns, Netflix all off a sudden dropped “The Cloverfield Paradox”. That makes this film the third film in the Cloverfield universe. This franchise started in 2008 with “Cloverfield”, where a group of young adults flee for a gigantic monster in New York City. It was a found footage film and a sudden success. The long-awaited sequel came eight years after that. This was a surprise that came out of nowhere. The connection between the two films was thin but “The Cloverfield Paradox” had to connect the two.
The voice-over at the start of the film tells us that Earth is dealing with an energy crisis. For reasons unknown, it wasn’t possible to get green energy from the wind or sun. All hope is set on a particle accelerator, called The Shepard, and the crew of a space station called Cloverfield is testing it. But after two years they don’t have any results and all hope is lost. And that with a war that is about to break on Earth.
When they do succeed, strange things start to happen on board of the Cloverfield Station and everyone starts doubting what’s real and what’s not. Through one of the crew member’s husbands we get to see some images from Earth, that there are monsters walking around.
I have problems with the timeline. There was a scene in “Cloverfield” where you can see a satellite falling from the sky (you have to pause the film to notice it) and it now suggests that it was the satellite from “The Cloverfield Paradox”. But when you see the monsters, you know that this isn’t right. Since the monsters in this film are way bigger and at the moment the satellite crashes in “Cloverfield”, there were no monsters yet. And in this one there are.
And everything that happens on board of the space station feels like only half the work. Some separate ideas they threw together in a story they wrote, which makes the film inconsistent and feel a bit lazy. The dialogue also feels uninspired.
Even though there is a great cast, none of them succeed to impress. But with the material they have to work with, you can’t really blame them. Overall, “The Cloverfield Paradox” left us guessing even more than after the first two films. And there is normally nothing wrong with that, I like comparing theories with other film fans after seeing a film. But “The Cloverfield Paradox” was supposed to connect “Cloverfield” and 10 Cloverfield Lane” and didn’t manage to do that.

Rating: 2 / 5