Year of Release: 2018
Director: Julius Onah
Starring: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Daniel Bruhl, John Ortiz, Chris O'Dowd, Elizabeth Debicki, Zhang Ziyi, Roger Davies, Aksel Hennie, Clover Nee
Genre: Sci-Fi, Horror
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 6
Watch it on Netflix
Synopsis and Review
The Cloverfield franchise is now three films counting, with indication there's more to come. "The Cloverfield Paradox", which premiered in 2018, is the sophomore directorial endeavor for Julius Onah, who prior to this film had released a series of shorts, and "The Girl is in Trouble" as his feature directorial debut, which didn't fare very well. "The Cloverfield Paradox" takes place in 2028, and follows the adventures of an international team, located on a space station by the name of Cloverfield, who are attempting to test a particle accelerator in order to provide Earth with a source of infinite energy. There are groups on Earth who fear the accelerator will possibly open portals to parallel universes, which may turn out to be quite dangerous for Earth and its inhabitants. After years of unsuccessful attempts, the team apparently manages to create a stable beam, only for it to overload, eventually creating a power surge. Following these events the team notices that Eath has vanished and the gyroscope that is crucial for the station's navigation is missing. They soon also discover a woman named Mina Jensen who is within the walls of the station, fused with its wires. As more disturbing events keep occurring, the team eventually locates Earth, and realizes the accelerator was indeed activated, and that the station was transported to a parallel universe, where some of the team members are now different, as are some of the backstories for some of the crew members themselves. Ava Hamilton, the communications officer on the station tries to make sense of it all before everything gets out of control.
"The Cloverfield Paradox" had a rather colorful journey to the screen, with Paramount Pictures originally behind the production of the feature, until its budget spiraled quite a bit, upon which the feature got purchased and eventually released by Netflix. Upon its release the film received harsh reviews, mostly directed at its plot and its ties with the franchise originator. In reality the film isn't worthy of that lambasting, as it is a competent science fiction film, one that inherits influences from Ridley Scott's "Alien", Stanley Kubrick's seminal "2001: A Space Odyssey", and even Danny Boyle's "Sunshine", though it takes a detour into the territory of parallel universes, something that the Marvel Universe has made very popular. Director Julius Onah manages to create atmosphere and tension throughout the narrative, and in parallel illustrates in broad strokes the relationships between the crew members, with just a few of them being entitled to an actual view into their past, their motivations, and what ultimately haunts them. Sadly this more in-depth vision of the characters isn't shared by all of them, including the new crew member they add to their group, something that makes most of these characters rather forgettable, which in turn ends up being the sorest point of the feature. Some of the criticism directed at the film targeted how the creative team forced this feature to tie itself with the rest of the franchise, which is indeed an unexpected aspect of the film, but something that doesn't take away from the storytelling that Julius Onah and his team have crafted up until then. The cast is solid, with highlights going for the always fantastic David Oyelowo, Daniel Bruhl, Zhang Ziyi, Chris O'Dowd, Elizabeth Debicki, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw who ends up having the most central role. The production team is also solid, including Dan Mindel's cinematography, Bear McCreary's score, Colleen Atwood's costumes, and Amelia Brooke & Doug J. Meerdink's production design. Possibly not as impactful as Matt Reeves' first "Cloverfield" feature, this endeavor is nonetheless watchable and entertaining.
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