Netflix’s The Cloverfield Paradox (2018) – Film Review
Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t home to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday—not that I cared about either two teams playing, but I missed the bombshell teaser trailer for this film.
I’ve followed the Cloverfield anthology religiously since it debuted in 2008. Dan Trachtenberg’s “follow-up”—10 Cloverfield Lane from 2016—wasn’t a bad chapter in the anthology, either, and many (myself, included) liked that the found footage mode of storytelling was done away with, allowing for a new director’s take on things in the universe. In Paradox, we see the culmination of ten years of planning…as well as the “reason” behind the events of the last two films.
What the Cloverfield anthology has always done really well, in my view, has been in the way each film “moviefies” present-day fears. It’s not a water-tight theory, but it works for creating another linking thread between the films, for me. In the first film from 2008, the monster (oh, yea…spoiler alert) embodies the Nation’s post-9/11 terrorism fears. 2016’s 10 Cloverfield Lane builds on that; with nuclear tensions between world powers escalating—still, to this day—it’s a look at what’s going on on an individual level during the hypothetical Stateside invasion (even though it’s aliens, and not Russian or North Korean troops).
Paradox centers around our next big thing: Particle acceleration, hinted at all the way back when the film’s working title, God Particle, was first spread around the internet. Here, we see the world(s)-altering effects of what happens when Man’s scientific reach exceeds his grasp…
The cast is great. Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Beyond the Lights, Beauty and the Beast (2017)) and David Oyelowo (Selma, Queen of Katwe) head up the lot, alongside Daniel Brühl (Captain America: Civil War, The Zookeeper’s Wife), Elizabeth Debicki (Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, The Night Manager), Ziyi Zhang (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Great Wall), Aksel Hennie (Jo Nesbø’s Headhunters, The Martian), and John Ortiz (Alien v. Predator: Requiem, Silver Linings Playbook). Every character had their quirks that made them likable (if, that is, they stayed alive in the story long enough to become likable), and I found myself torn when those that had to die did. With only an hour and forty-two minutes to make me care about these people, the filmmakers were able to pull it off. From Oyelowo’s no-nonsense commander with the only actual grasp on the situation and ability to keep his head, and Mbatha-Raw’s all-too-relatable Hamilton, to the shady Schmidt (Brühl), and the not-so-two-dimensional, come-from-behind Jensen (Debicki), it was a tense watch, full of lively characters to root for.
Bear McCreary (The Walking Dead)’s musical score, coupled with the confined corridors of the space station setting, made me uneasy. This is a good thing; with all the freaky stuff happening aboard the station, the music kept me in that paranoid mindset, never knowing when something else was going to go wrong. The science involved in the plot is…fascinating. Unfortunately, I can’t get into explaining any of it without spoiling the plot—watch and discover it for yourself!
The practical effects—and even some of the CGI work—is impressive, seamless; one scene, in particular, near the beginning, reminds me of that hallway fight scene during Christopher Nolan’s Inception, filmed without CG, inside a giant, crew-built tumbler. I can’t help but think the filmmakers here used that as inspiration for the sequence. Set- and costume-design are top-notch, recalling familiar elements from films as disparate as Alien and Interstellar. Shout-outs to previous films in the anthology—as well as references to other sci-fi—are neat to pick out, for the eagle-eyed viewer.
Some of the acting is a bit daffy (in one shot, one of the actors was on the brink of laughter while trying to deliver a serious line), but smooth, overall. Everyone reacts just as any normal person in shock—astronaut or no—would, in this situation. Believably, anyway… There is humor, throughout, adding welcome levity to a royally-screwed turn-of-events.
So far, I’m loving Cloverfield’s loose anthology; with another chapter in the works—as yet untitled—I can’t wait to see where the filmmakers take me next. As a sci-fi geek, this has certainly been a welcome addition to the line-up.
Final ‘Risk Assessment: ****/*.
LINK: “The Cloverfield Paradox (2018), Super Bowl Sneak Peek” from IMDb [http://www.imdb.com/videoplayer/vi3973560345]
Next review: Peter Rabbit (Feb. 9th)
