Only a few days ago The Cloverfield Paradox was titled God Particle and it was scheduled to come out in theaters sometime in March. It was scheduled to be produced by Paramount Pictures and be another surprise entry into the infamously secretive Cloverfield franchise. However, just a week or so ago, Netflix bought the rights to the film and (since this movie had been finished for over a year) had the balls to show its first trailer during the Super Bowl on Sunday and then drop the film on Netflix the very same night. I'd been waiting anxiously for this film because I've known about it for awhile. I loved the fact that it was called God Particle and the only plot synopsis you could find about the film was: "rumored to be Cloverfield prequel". When I saw the trailer drop during the Super Bowl, I was even more excited because it looked like someone had finally dropped some money on the franchise and we were getting our big budget alien monster movie we've been craving since the first film. Finally, I was ecstatic when I realized I could watch it that night and how cool it was that I was able to see a trailer for the first time and then immediately be able to watch the film. Way to go, Netflix. However, this ends the excitement I had relating to this particular film.
It's only now that I realized that Paramount was the smarter company here. This film's release date has been pushed back several times and it had people wondering if the movie even existed at all. In a last ditch effort to make some real money on the project, Paramount sold it to Netflix. The reason most likely being-- the movie is not good. Paramount assuredly knew this fact, had the inkling that it would probably bomb at the box office and lose them a significant amount of money. Netflix, who probably also knew the movie was bad, knew that they don't have this same kind of problem. If they can release the trailer and the film on the same day to one of the most watched sporting events in America, then they could get those millions of viewers to watch the film based on name recognition alone before all of the negative reviews come shuffling in. It's different to hear that a movie is terrible and not want to shell out $15 at the theater, than it is to be curious about the next installment to a franchise most people enjoy and watch it for free at home that critics are saying isn't worth your time. Well, here I am. Self-appointed movie critic telling you... it's not worth your time.
The one thing that the Cloverfield movies have done well is utilize the creativity involved in a smaller budget. The first film was a monster movie that never really had to show the monster until the end because it was during the heyday of found-footage. The second film turned the genre on its head and gave us more of a kidnapping-horror movie with a Cloverfield twist. Eventually, we knew the budget was going to go big and give us the story of what the hell is actually going on in this world. Well, for those of you who watched the Super Bowl trailer that promised to tell you where and how everything started-- I'm here to say you are going to be sorely disappointed because I have no more answers for anything after watching the movie than I did before I watched it. What's supposedly a prequel tells the story of a crew of astronauts up on a space station with a high powered particle accelerator used to hopefully generate power for a dying Earth. What happens, however, is the accelerator accidentally rips open a hole in space and sends our crew to another dimension. There, weird shit starts to happen like the walls attacking people, missing spaceship parts wind up inside the stomach of corpses, strangers show up on the ship who are essentially from Earth 2, a severed arm writes notes to its previous owner, etc. And yet... none of this actually seems to make any sense in the long run or connect to anything Cloverfield related.
The franchise took a gamble when it acquired a simple script about a crazy dude who kidnaps two people, holds them in a bunker and tells them he did it because there's been an alien attack and he's trying to keep them safe. It's a cool little psychological thriller trying to figure out if the kidnapper is telling the truth or truly insane. Then, Abrams and company bought the script and added a little Cloverfield connection to the end and voila! they have a sequel (or, at the very least, a spinoff). The Cloverfield Paradox apparently did the same thing. The script was an original piece that producers snagged up and decided to add the Cloverfield flare to it. Except this time... it didn't work at all. The rules of the world are completely convoluted, we're not given any answers to any questions we may have acquired after watching the previous two films (in fact, after this movie, we now have more questions) and nothing really makes sense. It's like they made Lost into a space movie and called it a Cloverfield movie. There's so much unexplained weirdness around the story that nothing every really comes together to give the viewer anything coherent. And by the end it becomes your run-of-the-mill space horror movie we've seen a hundred times where a group of astronauts are picked off one-by-one until there are one or two survivors making one last ditch effort to get home (can anyone say Alien, Aliens, 2010, Event Horizon, Pandorum, Sunshine, Alien: Covenant). Nothing new is presented in this film both genre-wise and Cloverfield-wise.
It's not without its merits. It's a very stylish space movie and the ship and setting in general is very eye-pleasing. And Gugu Mbatha-Raw brings some much needed depth to a movie of seriously one-dimensional characters. Chris O'Dowd is also mostly great as the comic relief. But the rest of it is pretty bleh. It's got a great supporting cast full of actors you'll recognize from much better movies. And there are some thrills and excitement, but it's difficult to get too invested in them when you're confused as to what exactly is going on. Netflix took a gamble with this movie and the way they decided to bring it forth to the world. Unfortunately the product is much like a lot of their other tentpole Netflix originals as it is seriously lacking in multiple areas (see: Bright).
D-
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