'The Cloverfield Paradox' Review

The Cloverfield Paradox chronicles the unexpected results of a scientific experiment involving a particle accelerator aboard a space station as the crew become isolated and must fight for their survival.

In all honesty, I was not expecting to be reviewing this film anytime soon... It had bounced around with a couple different release dates in the past year and I had no idea if it would ever see the light of day... For those who don't know about The Cloverfield Paradox's marketing stunt, the film had no prior promotion before the Super Bowl whatsoever... Then they released a thirty second teaser and announced it would be available to stream on Netflix hours later after the game. Now, this idea is entirely unprecedented and Netflix literally made history last night. Sure, there had been rumblings about the the film going to Netflix these past few weeks and there were also rumors that surfaced just before the game about it being available afterwards, but still, they were just rumors. There was little confirmation. However, Paramount, Bad Robot, and J.J. Abrams pulled off another insane marketing stunt with the help of Netflix. As a marketing major myself, I couldn't help but admire their audacity!! Honestly, once the Avengers: Infinity War TV spot aired, I was ready for the game to end so I could finally watch the third entry to the Cloverfield franchise.

Marketing gimmicks aside, you came here to read my thoughts on the film itself, correct? Well... I'm going to be especially vague on plot details to avoid spoilers, but without further ado, here we go! The Cloverfield Paradox is another anthology entry following Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane, meaning it's not a direct sequel to the others but takes place in the same universe with slight connections to the other two entries in the series. The film's directed by Julius Onah and features a screenplay written by Oren Uziel and Doug Jung. Onah seems to tap right into the franchise's core sensibility of suspense while bringing another genre to the forefront. Where Cloverfield was a found-footage monster movie and 10 Cloverfield Lane was a claustrophobic thriller, The Cloverfield Paradox is a sci-fi horror.

I've already seen some comparing it to Alien, but to me, it was hardly anything like Alien... If anything, I actually appreciated that the crew's situation was entirely unlike the one we're used to seeing in those films. This crew was facing something completely different, and I liked that change of pace for the genre considering how Life was such an Alien rip-off last year. My only issues were that some crew members were underdeveloped, the film was a little slow to get going, it fell into some of the space station movie tropes, and that it seemed really odd that the term "Cloverfield" was used so often in universe considering neither of the last two films did that... I'm not into all the ARG stuff so I could be wrong, but it just seemed odd to me regardless. Overall, I liked the visual effects, performances, Bear McCreary's spectacular score, and how Dan Mindel effectively navigated capturing a claustrophobic setting as cinematographer.

The stand-out cast members were undoubtedly Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Daniel Brühl, Chris O' Dowd, and David Oyelowo, who each turned in a fine performance. Mbatha-Raw, in particular, really impressed me as Ava Hamilton and made for an engaging lead character that I could really get behind as I was especially intrigued by her character's central conflict. On the flip-side, Elizabeth Debicki seemed to act a little wooden and stilted, which didn't quite work for the character. Her motivations also seemed to suddenly shift at one point, and while I understood why she did what she did, the change took me a bit off-guard. All the other members of the ensemble were good in the capacity utilized.

While I wouldn't go as far to calling The Cloverfield Paradox the best Cloverfield movie, I consider it an interesting addition to the anthology and think it's well worth watching from the comfort of your own home. For the most part, I felt The Cloverfield Paradox was successful in what it set out to achieve by connecting the grand Cloverfield-verse while providing some impressive visuals and stimulating space thrills along the way. 

Film Assessment: B-