In January 2008, audiences were treated to a new sci-fi monster flick known as Cloverfield. Produced by ‘franchise savior’ J.J. Abrams, written by Joss Whedon veteran Drew Goddard, and directed by ‘pre-Planet of the Apes’ Matt Reeves, the film was a major critical/commercial hit while also proving to be somewhat of a landmark entry in the ‘found footage’ genre. After that, though, it was unclear for a while if there would be a follow-up despite Abrams, Goddard, and Reeves all claiming that they were planning on making one. It wasn’t until 2016 when audiences learned that the series was set to continue, as 10 Cloverfield Lane was announced just two months prior to its March 2016 release. But despite this short time-span between its initial announcement and release, the film was another major critical/commercial hit that effectively paved the way for a fascinating new franchise that was intent on being reminiscent of the classic anthology series, The Twilight Zone. And now, this brings us to film #3 in the franchise, The Cloverfield Paradox. Initially named God Particle, this film was confirmed to be part of the Cloverfield franchise not long after 10 Cloverfield Lane’s release. However, the film’s initial fall 2017 release date ended up getting scrapped. Plus, like any major J.J. Abrams production, details about it were scarce for the following few months… that is, until this past Sunday when its first promo aired during the Super Bowl. Even more surprising, the promo revealed that the film would debut that very night on Netflix in lieu of a theatrical release. Thus, without further ado, let’s delve into the third installment of the Cloverfield franchise, which claims that it’ll uncover some backstory regarding the events of the original film that started it all.
In a not too distant future, the planet Earth is on the verge of a worldwide war due to an impending energy crisis. To fix this problem, all the major space programs of the world launch the Cloverfield Station, which is outfitted with a particle accelerator known as ‘the Shepard’ that will hopefully provide the planet with a new source of energy. However, the experiment ends up failing numerous times, resulting in the station’s crew being forced to prolong their stay up in space for at least two years as they must figure out why the Shepard keeps malfunctioning so that they can get it to work in time before a war breaks out back home on Earth. Eventually, the crew manages to achieve what appears to be a successful test, but in the process, they then find themselves in a troubling situation as the Earth mysteriously disappears from existence. This predicament is then further compounded by the unexpected arrival of a woman named Mina Jensen (Elizabeth Debicki), who claims to be a member of the crew and the best friend of crew member Ava Hamilton (Gugu-Mbatha Raw). In other words, the crew of Cloverfield Station soon come to realize that they’ve somehow ended up in an alternate dimension, which they must escape from before the damages to the station that were caused by the particle accelerator become too severe. Little do they know, though, that they must soon deal with the various dangers of this strange new world while, unbeknownst to them, the Earth of their dimension is dealing with a dangerous new threat of its own.
While the potential was very much there for an interesting sci-fi story that further developed the universe of Cloverfield, this potential is ultimately wasted due to the film’s biggest issue of having a generally undercooked plot. Not only that, but it’s also quite derivative of several classic sci-fi films. Now I won’t be naming some of the biggest films that are clearly this film’s primary influences here because I fear that they would lead to some spoiler-y discussion about the events that happen in this film and I want to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible. Still, I’m 99.9% confident that you’ll know EXACTLY what films I’m talking about when you see this because, sadly, the similarities that The Cloverfield Paradox shares with those other sci-fi films are quite blatant. Now to the film’s credit, it does live up to its promise of delving into the mythos of its franchise, specifically by providing an answer to one of the key mysteries that was laid out in the ending of the original Cloverfield. Still, its attempts at connecting everything in the Cloverfield franchise ultimately feel just as underdeveloped as its main plot because it never really explores any of the story ideas that it introduces, especially the one that establishes the concept of alternate dimensions. And it’s a shame, really, because, from a technical perspective, the film is at least decently made. For a film that was originally meant to be released in IMAX but was ultimately relegated to being released on Netflix instead, it looks fine enough thanks to the solid cinematography from Bad Robot Productions regular Dan Mindel, who also did the cinematography for J.J. Abrams’ two Star Trek films and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. And just like the previous Cloverfield film, 10 Cloverfield Lane, this film sports an excellent score courtesy of the legendary Bear McCreary.
Alas, though, the various story issues of this film also end up affecting its cast of characters AKA the crew of Cloverfield Station. These characters are just as generic as the plot itself, with most of them getting little to no character development only to serve as a collection of stock horror film protagonists. Thankfully, this doesn’t apply to ‘all’ of them; specifically, Gugu Mbatha-Raw as main protagonist Ava Hamilton, who is easily the most well-developed character of the entire group. Obviously, that’s not really saying much given the lack of character development for everyone else but, to the film’s credit, her overall role in the story (which is all tied to an immensely devastating tragedy from her past) does yield its most effective moments of emotional poignancy. And this is only strengthened further by Mbatha-Raw’s excellent performance in the role; in other words, she’s easily the best part of the film. As for the rest of the cast, while they don’t get as much to work with by comparison, at the very least they’re all fine in their respective roles. Daniel Brühl is another major standout as Schmidt, who ends up being one of the more enigmatic members of the station’s crew, as is Chris O’Dowd as Mundy, who’s basically the film’s main ‘comic relief’ character. But again, without any decent bits of character development to work with, the two of them along with fellow co-stars David Oyelowo, John Ortiz, Zhang Ziyi, Aksel Hennie, and Elizabeth Debicki end up being just as stranded as their characters are in their current predicament.
From what I’ve read, it seems as if The Cloverfield Paradox’s fate as a Netflix release was due to Paramount, the franchise’s main studio, being uneasy about the final product and its potential profitability given its franchise-high budget of $45 million. J.J. Abrams himself was keen on trying to salvage the film in post-production but was ultimately unable to do so when he signed on to direct Star Wars: Episode IX. And overall, this does basically sum up this film in a nutshell. While it’s not outright ‘terrible’ (if anything, it’s not necessarily as bad as its abysmal 19% rating on Rotten Tomatoes suggests), it’s still a tragically underwhelming continuation of the Cloverfield franchise. Despite the potential for some interesting plot-lines, the film ultimately wastes them all due to its woefully generic sci-fi horror story that does little to further explore the franchise’s lore. This, in turn, wastes a perfectly good ensemble cast (save for Gugu Mbatha-Raw) that ends up being restricted to a bunch of stereotypical sci-fi horror roles. Ultimately, though, I will admit that I wasn’t ‘bored’ by this film at any point despite it being a clear hodge-podge of other films in its genre. Thus, if you are a fan of the Cloverfield franchise, then there’s a chance that you might like this film okay even if it’s nowhere near as good as its two predecessors. And despite this film’s disastrous critical reception, I don’t believe that this will be the end of the Cloverfield franchise. After all, there’s yet another Cloverfield film coming out later this year in October in the form of a WWII-set supernatural horror film called Overlord. Of course, it’ll probably get renamed soon so that it’ll have Cloverfield in the title, as was the case with 10 Cloverfield Lane (originally The Cellar) and this (originally God Particle). But thankfully, it’s been recently announced that it, along with other potential future installments of the franchise, will be theatrical releases instead of what happened here.
Rating: 2.5/5
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