Title – The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

Director – Julius Onah (feature debut)

Cast – Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Daniel Brühl, Chris O’Dowd, John Ortiz, Ziyi Zhang, Elizabeth Debicki, Aksel Hennie

Plot – Members on board a spaceship designed to carry a device that will help solve Earth’s dire energy crisis unwittingly unlock an alternate reality that could have dire ramifications for the people on earth.

“I think my arm is trying to write something”

Review by Eddie on 07/02/2018

Well that escalated quickly.

Not often do you get to watch a trailer and the movie on the very same day but that’s exactly what happened when Netflix unleashed their high-profile Superbowl trailer for their newly purchased Cloverfield project once known as God Particle on the world this week.

Sending fans of the J.J Abrams backed series into a frenzy and coaxing more casual moviegoers into having a watch after the big showdown, Netflix’s plan to create buzz out of thin air has certainly worked but behind the mastermind tactics lies a dark and somewhat sad secret behind the reasoning of this clandestine campaign.

Once touted as a large-scale cinema release through the Paramount brand, what we now know to be The Cloverfield Paradox was snapped up by Netflix in the 12^th hour to become the streaming giants newest name brand release but it’s quite possible upon purchase that Netflix grew to understand they had nabbed a lemon and decided that the usual release plan for first time director Julius Onah unexciting and uninspired feature wasn’t going to cut it.

From what seems to be a genuinely decent starting off point for a movie that could melt minds and provide some thrills and chills, Paradox quickly descends into a generic space disaster film filled with random and unexplained occurrences and a crew of supposedly bright minds that we don’t even get a chance to care about, giving Onah’s film little chance of succeeding as either another solid Cloverfield recognised product or an above average sci-fi/horror experience.

With any film that delves into such highly doubtful scenarios such as parallel dimensions, monsters or Chris O’Dowd as a repairman, the suspension of disbelief and logic gets given a long string by the audience but Onah takes us all for a ride as his film plummets along from its intriguing beginning through to a “are you serious” finale, that includes a wannabe money shot final scene that just doesn’t work.

As Onah ship continues to sink further and further into the cold and unforgiving waters of the unfortunately daft, a recognisable if not exactly name brand cast can’t help elevate proceedings and while lead actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw continues to be a solid contributor to all of her projects, other actors that should know better like Daniel Bruhl and John Ortiz fail to make an impact while the aforementioned O’Dowd in particular is horrible in his supposed comic relief like role.

Final Say –

Both an extremely disappointing entry into the Cloverfield series and an unworthily hyped Netflix product, The Cloverfield Paradox will make all who view it dubious on future Netflix products that follow a similar release path, with fears they too are but clever ways to unleash a lemon on the unsuspecting public.

1 ½ severed writing arms out of 5