The Movie: The Cloverfield Paradox
The Director: Julius Onah
The Cast: Daniel Brühl, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris O'Dowd, Ziyi Zhang, David Oyelowo, John Ortiz, Aksel Hennie, Roger Davies
The Story: After a scientific experiment aboard the space station involving a particle accelerator has unexpected results, the astronauts find themselves isolated. Following their horrible discovery, the space station crew must fight for survival.
The Review:
I love the Cloverfield Multiverse and everything about how J.J. Abrams has brought it to life! Drew Goddard is also a major part of this ongoing endeavor ever since he wrote the original Cloverfield, which is still one of my favorite Kaiju movies of recent memory, as well as having producer credits on the next two films. For this movie, the writing team of Oren Uziel and Doug Jung was brought in to tell us how the Cloverfield monster arrived on earth, a phenomenon that involved a space station, time travel, inter-dimensional travel, aliens, and all kinds of other awesome science fiction things.
Yes, this story is all in when it comes to science fiction although not in a way that adheres strictly to actual science or even logic for that matter don't try to go there, you'll be disappointed. Have you ever thought what it might be like if the transporter on Star Trek sent somebody into the middle of a wall instead of a perfectly safe open space? These are the types of things we get to see. Chaos. In space. Excuse me while I go flail in excitement for a moment.
For comparisons sake, I would say this movie is a combination of Prometheus and Gravity if those movies were set in the Twilight Zone. So yeah. Fun stuff.
While these are all reasons to get excited, they may also be turn offs for people who want more of an easy to digest story without all the extra nerdiness thrown in and yeah, I get that. For me, the story is great and lots of fun but what I missed the most was the ability to watch this movie on a big screen in a movie theater. When it comes to the sights and sounds of a science fiction thriller, everything is enhanced and becomes larger than life so watching it at home on my TV was just a little bit of a disappointment. I will also say the movie does have its flaws so it's not perfect by any means although, where it comes close, is in the casting of all the primary roles.
Can we please move Gugu Mbatha-Raw into the roster of women who can carry a movie her damn self? She is everything you want her to be and her character is very important, both to the story, and as a representation of who can be a super smart, compassionate, leader type person. Also, big shout outs to Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris O'Dowd, Ziyi Zhang, David Oyelowo, Aksel Hennie and John Ortiz for coming together like Voltron and forming one of the better and more talented ensemble casts I have seen in a while.
The Verdict:
The Cloverfield Paradox is the sequel/prequel franchise installment I didn't know was about to happen but was just about everything I could have hoped for. Have I mentioned that I love what J.J. Abrams is doing with this franchise? Apparently the fourth film has already been made in total secrecy and will see the franchise return to the big screen when it is eventually released. For now, I will always remember watching the trailer during the Super Bowl and realizing I would be watching this movie on the Netflix as soon as the game ended. So cool!
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