The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

The original Cloverfield movie had a lot of flaws, but overall it was entertaining and I enjoyed it. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a compelling psychological thriller and I loved it. Therefore I was pretty excited when I heard The Cloverfield Paradox dropped on Netflix. I was so excited I didn't even bother asking why, given the success of the first two movies, Paramount decided to release it on Netflix. Reason's pretty simple, the film isn't that good. 

In the near future, Earth is suffering from a global energy crisis so the best space agencies in the world assemble a team of astronauts and send them into space to solve the problem. Over 600 days later, failure after failure, they finally manage to do something. But it's not what they expected and now they have to deal with the horrors they've unleashed and fight to survive.

The story is very interesting at first, and it really had me glued to the screen for the first 30 minutes or so. Then something terrible happens, and I'm not talking about the Cloverfield paradox which is the opening of portals to other dimensions but about how weird and complicated the plot gets, with so many twists and turns that's impossible to keep track of what's going on. 

The plot is pretty much cliché after cliché --I ended up wondering whether I was watching a Cloverfield movie or a sci-fi parody--, it lacks originality --it's some sort of Alien meets Gravity meets Interstellar meets Black Mirror meets any other great sci-fi film/show you can think of-- and it's dull. 

Netflix

The Cloverfield Paradox was supposed to answer the questions from the two previous instalments, but it does that only in part. It does provide solutions to some big problems, but it does a quite poor job. What's even worse though is that it raises so many questions and leaves them unanswered.

The characters --one of the strongest elements in 10 Cloverfield Lane-- are also pretty weak. They lack characterization and depth, and they are very forgettable. We don't know anything about them --all we know about Hamilton, the main character, is that she is married and has kid(s) so they can throw in a cringy relationship-- and therefore we don't care about them. The performances, however, are quite strong, especially from Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Daniel Brühl.

The direction is also very disappointing. Just like with the story, Julius Onah is able to deliver tension and suspense and set an interesting atmosphere in the first 30 minutes. It's not as good as 10 Cloverfield Lane's claustrophobic suspense and atmosphere, but it's pretty good. When the story escalates, so does everything else. But at least the special effects are good.