The Cloverfield Paradox (2018) review

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

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) review

(Note: While the film has been out for at least two weeks now, I’m still going to maintain a ‘no spoilers’ mandate for this review in case some of you haven’t seen it yet.)

In 2007, J.J. Abrams, before he became known as the director who was responsible for reviving not one but three separate franchises (Mission Impossible, Star Trek, and Star Wars), debuted a secret trailer that ran before screenings of Michael Bay’s first Transformers film. This trailer, which centered around a going-away party in New York that was interrupted by a mysterious event occurring in the city, was noteworthy for not initially revealing the title for the film. It only listed J.J.’s producing credit and its impending release date of 1-18-08. It wasn’t until later when the film’s official title, Cloverfield, and the fact that it was a monster film was made clear. And when it was released that following January, it proved to be a pretty sizable hit, attracting solid reviews and a nice box-office haul on just a $25 million budget. The success of the film led to much talk about a possible sequel, with director Matt Reeves stating that there were many possibilities for follow-ups due to the fact that the events of the film probably weren’t the only ‘filmed’ events from that night. Ultimately though, for a few years it seemed like there wasn’t going to be a sequel due to both Reeves and Abrams moving onto other projects. However, just less than two months ago, Abrams pulled a fast one on us by unveiling a special teaser before, fittingly enough, another Michael Bay film; in this case, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi. As it turned out, this ‘mystery film’ was pretty much the long-awaited Cloverfield sequel that fans have been waiting for; 10 Cloverfield Lane. However, as J.J. soon made it clear, this was only a ‘blood relative’ to that film and looking at it now, that’s definitely true. This is not meant to be a straightforward sequel to the original film. But even with that said, and save for some unanswered questions that come from the ending, 10 Cloverfield Lane is a very thrilling story that showcases the potential for where this series can go from here.

As the film begins, a young woman named Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) leaves her New Orleans home after getting into an argument with her fiancé Ben (who’s notably played, in voice only, by Bradley Cooper). But while driving through Louisiana, she suddenly ends up in a severe car accident. When she comes to, she finds herself chained to the wall in a small concrete room. She soon learns that she’s been brought to an underground bunker that is also being inhabited by Emmett Dewitt (John Gallagher, Jr.), a fellow ‘survivor’, and the owner of the bunker, Howard Stambler (John Goodman). Howard tells her that he brought her to the bunker following her crash because of an unspecified attack that has made the air outside toxic and has pretty much killed off everyone else save for them. With nowhere else to go, Michelle is forced to adapt to living within Howard’s bunker. But as time goes on, both Michelle and Emmett start to grow suspicious of Howard and fear that, despite his seemingly generous nature in regards to letting them stay in the bunker, he’s actually going to become a threat to them. As a result, the two begin working on an escape plan, which ultimately leads them to have to confront whatever the heck is going on up on the surface.

Back in January, I did a post on the trailer for this film and posed the question of just how much is it meant to connect to the original Cloverfield. Well, having now seen the film, I can firmly say that it actually doesn’t relate to it that much. In other words, this is not a ‘follow-up’ to the events of the first film. The monster from the first film does not appear at any point and this film is shot traditionally instead of in the ‘found-footage’ style that defined the first film. But at the same time, I do still see how this film is meant to be a ‘blood relative’ of Cloverfield. Both films are, at their very roots, stories of strange ‘events’ happening and how certain people respond to it. And whereas the first film was a ‘monster/horror’ film, this film is more of a claustrophobic thriller as it is almost entirely set within the confines of Howard’s bunker. And overall it does deliver on being a very tense thriller throughout, with the audience left in the dark just as much as Michelle is in regards to what’s going on. And because of it, you’re very much invested in wanting to know more just like Michelle. The film also benefits from a terrific trio of leads. John Gallagher, Jr., AKA the ‘general unknown’ of the three, is solid even when considering that his character Emmett is basically the least important of the three. Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Michelle is a smart and likable ‘avatar’ for the audience and it’s really cool how a good chunk of the film revolves around her and her attempts to escape, whether it’s using an IV rod in order to reach her phone or her starting a fire in the ventilation system. But the real star of the show is John Goodman in the role of Howard. Walking a fine line between intimidating and creepy, as well as seeming like he’s ‘not all there’ at times, Howard is a complete enigma throughout and this film reaffirms the fact that Goodman is quite simply one of the best character actors in the business.  

But while I was immediately hooked with the plot and was curious to see where this film was going to go, I’ll admit that I felt a little let-down by the ending. Now again, I won’t spoil what happens for anyone who hasn’t seen the film yet and for the record, it’s not like this ending was completely out of left field or anything, as I’ve heard some people claim. There are some allusions early on about what’s actually happening and of course whatever it is was responsible for what then led to Howard, Michelle, and Emmett being stuck in the bunker. And the conflict that emerges between Howard and Michelle is also clearly defined in regards to the former’s true intentions. However, in regards to “what’s coming”, as the marketing keeps stating, the film doesn’t really do much to explain it. Now I’m not entirely faulting the film for deciding not to delve too much into this ‘entity’ but at the same time, it would’ve been nice to learn just a little bit more about who this is and what they’re doing here. Also, there’s not much of a finality to Howard’s overall story arc. I’ve read about the film’s original ending and, obviously without giving anything major away, I do feel that this version would’ve resulted in a more conclusive ending to the conflict between Howard and Michelle. This ending also doesn’t feature the ‘entity’ so I’m guessing that part of the film was added in later, supposedly in reshoots. Either way, though, neither version really does much to explain what actually happened. At the end of the day, it’s more about what happens inside the bunker than what’s happening on the outside. 

Now despite my issues with the ending, I did still thoroughly enjoy 10 Cloverfield Lane. Because ultimately the most important element of the film isn’t ‘what’s out there’ but instead the characters within the bunker and everything that goes on while they’re in there. The first two-thirds of the film do an excellent job in regards to setting these characters up and establishing a terrifically suspenseful atmosphere within its ‘cozy’ confines, especially thanks to John Goodman’s outstanding performance as the incredibly eerie Howard. As someone who admittedly isn’t a ‘big, big fan’ of the original Cloverfield, I actually didn’t mind that this film wasn’t a 100% ‘direct sequel’ to it. There has been some debate over the overall decision to connect this film to the original Cloverfield, with some arguing that this was nothing more than Paramount cashing in on the Cloverfield name due to the fact that this film was originally known as The Cellar before Bad Robot took over the film’s production and connected it to the 2008 film. But overall I do very much get how this film can be seen as a ‘blood relative’ to the original Cloverfield because both films do share a similarly structured plot based around ‘strange occurrences’. This film also helps showcase the potential of what is apparently meant to be the beginning of a new ‘anthology’ series and a pretty interesting one at that, if you ask me. After all, as this film’s tagline states, ‘Monsters Come in Many Forms’, so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of ‘monsters’ J.J. Abrams and his team come up with down the road. Until then, I will say that 10 Cloverfield Lane is a well-made thriller with a great trio of leads and an interesting premise that keep me interested throughout even if it kind of unraveled by the end.

Rating: 4/5

Is Cloverfield getting a Sequel? (10 Cloverfield Lane Trailer Analysis)

It’s genuinely much harder nowadays for any major film production to maintain any level of secrecy given the expansive nature of the internet. In an age where it’s now incredibly easy to find information online, we pretty much always know when new films are set to come out and there have been plenty of instances where a major aspect of a film that wasn’t intended to be revealed before the film’s release gets leaked online. Sometimes it actually does end up spilling out through the official marketing campaign, hence why you tend to see a lot of complaints from people when they feel that trailers/TV spots/etc. are showing too much. But a lot of times it ends up getting leaked not from the studio but through sites like Heroic Hollywood and quite frankly I don’t see why this is ever meant to be a good thing. I mean imagine how less of an impact older films like ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘The Usual Suspects’ would have if their big twists were leaked online weeks before the film was meant to come out. It’s gotten to the point where whole films like ‘The Expendables 3’ got leaked online weeks before release, which most definitely had some sort of impact on their eventual commercial performance. Thankfully there have been some filmmakers who have made an effort to maintain a shroud of secrecy surrounding their films and perhaps the most notable filmmaker at the moment who does this is J.J. Abrams. While it hasn’t always worked out for him (e.g. the Khan reveal in ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ that the internet figured out months in advance), for the most part he’s been able to keep us guessing about the secrets behind his films, even ones as big as ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’, a film which most people, including me, legitimately did not know anything major about the plot until seeing it. And this past week he pulled another fast one on us by debuting a trailer for a new film of his two months before its intended release date on March 11^th.

This new film, as Abrams describes it, is a ‘blood relative’ to a film that he produced eight years ago; one that has left its fans clamoring for a sequel. Before J.J. became known as the director of projects like the ‘Star Trek’ reboot films and ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’, he produced 2008’s ‘Cloverfield’, a found-footage monster film directed by Matt Reeves, who would of course go on to direct the critically acclaimed ‘Planet of the Apes’ sequel ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’. The first teaser for the film debuted at screenings for Michael Bay’s first ‘Transformers’ film back in 2007. But the big thing about this teaser was that it was released without a title. All it showed, aside from J.J.’s producer credit, was a bunch of people at a going-away party in New York for one of their friends that was interrupted by something happening in the city. It wasn’t until the film’s viral marketing kicked off when the title was officially confirmed to be ‘Cloverfield’ and the film’s true nature as a monster film was revealed. Once it was released in January 2008, it was a sizable critical and commercial hit, especially considering it was a January release. It scored a 77% RT rating and grossed over $170 million on just a $25 million budget. Talk of a potential sequel then began to circulate over the next few years. As Reeves put it, the film established various possibilities for a sequel due to the fact that the film’s protagonists probably weren’t the only people who were filming the events of that night. But for the next few years, nothing ever materialized… until now. And as it turned out, it happened without any of us knowing about it as it was filmed under the title ‘Valencia’.

The sequel, officially titled ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’, was announced via the same method that was used with the first film; through a teaser trailer that debuted without warning before a Michael Bay film, in this case his newest film ‘13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi’. However, this time around the film is not being directed by Matt Reeves, who’s currently working on the follow-up to ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’. Instead the film is to be directed by a newcomer, Dan Trachtenberg, who some of you might recognize as the former host of podcasts like ‘The Totally Rad Show’ and ‘Geekdrome’. And unlike the first film, which of course was shot in the found-footage format, this film eschews that style in favor of the more traditional format which, unlike the first film, certainly won’t cause some people to get sick while watching it. Not only that, but the trailer suggests that this is a much different film compared to ‘Cloverfield’ in terms of style. The trailer shows a group of three people (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, and John Gallagher Jr.) just living their lives within an underground cellar; playing board games, listening to the jukebox, etc. Everything seems hunky dory at first but as the trailer goes on, the mood starts to get a bit more sinister, culminating in Winstead’s character attacking Goodman’s character and attempting to flee from the cellar. But before she can get outside, with Goodman screaming at her from behind a locked door warning her not to open the door because that’ll get them all killed, she gets a glimpse of something outside that leaves her completely stunned.

At the moment, nothing has been made official about how the film is supposed to be connected to ‘Cloverfield’. I presume that the monster from the first film, named ‘Clover’ by the production team, will probably make some sort of appearance but considering that the film supposedly takes place after the events of the previous film, apparently as much as 10 years, I have the feeling that it isn’t guaranteed that this will happen. In fact, did the monster even survive the ending of the first film? Because it seemed like that ending was pretty darn conclusive. I’ve also heard rumors that this wasn’t even intended to be ‘Cloverfield 2’ in the first place and that the connections to ‘Cloverfield’ came solely as a result of re-writes and re-shoots. Apparently the film, which was shot in late 2014 for the record, had already been completed under the aforementioned title of ‘Valencia’ but was abandoned when its distributor, Paramount’s Insurge Pictures label, was dismantled last year. But then it was apparently resurrected by Paramount who instigated re-writes in order to connect it to ‘Cloverfield’, with one of the new writers notably being ‘Whiplash’ director Damien Chazelle, which subsequently led to reshoots this past year. I mean, I can see how that would make sense seeing how J.J. and his producing partner Bryan Burk are pretty much the only major people involved with both films. As stated earlier, Matt Reeves isn’t involved with the project, nor is writer Drew Goddard. It could potentially be argued that this is Paramount solely attempting to cash in on the ‘Cloverfield’ franchise by shoving the name onto a film that wasn’t at all intended to be a ‘Cloverfield’ sequel.  

But even with that potential outcome in mind, I have to admit that I’m really looking forward to seeing this film, if primarily for sheer curiosity. While I didn’t see it when it was released in theaters, I did like ‘Cloverfield’ so I’m interested in seeing how this film is meant to connect to it. It’s cool that the film is opting for what very much seems to be a different kind of story compared to the previous film. The trailer gives off what I can best describe as a ‘claustrophobic thriller’ vibe, as it seems like it will mostly take place within that underground cellar and focus solely on the three main characters. Plus, as I already went over earlier, it’s insane that a film like this could be kept hidden from the public in the modern internet age until just less than two months before its intended release. Whether or not you’re a fan of J.J.’s ‘mystery box’ method, you do have to commend the guy for at least staying true to this method in a time where you rarely see that happen anymore in the film industry. Again, this may end up just being a case where the rumor of it being nothing more than a ‘cash-grab’ is true and we were just fooled by the marketing. But the cool thing about this first trailer is that because it is so mysterious, it could legitimately go either way. We really don’t know that much about it at the moment, and that’s what makes it so fascinating to me, hence why I’m definitely interested in seeing it when it comes out.

So what do you folks think about ‘10 Cloverfield Lane’? Are you going to go see it? Have any theories on how it’s supposed to connect to ‘Cloverfield’? Do any of you agree with the rumor that it wasn’t meant to be a sequel in the first place? Sound off in the comments below.