MAJOR SPOILERS
You know the kind of friend who is always desperate to impress the group? So he tells a midly interesting anecdote, which turns into an unlikely boast and then escalates into blatant lies. The more he goes on, the less you are impressed; by the end, even the initially neat anecdote becomes irritating.
The Cloverfield Paradox follows the same storytelling school as this lying friend. This story of a group of astronauts working on a particle accelerator but ending up in a parallel universe had potential. This feels like an early draft though, messy, confusing and poorly thought-out.
Plot holes don't automatically spoil my enjoyment of a movie. I don't give a flying goat how it's implausible that Indy hangs to the U-Boot in Raiders. I'm not bothered by the family in A Quiet Place managing a farm in perfect silence. I notice this kind of stuff and, if it doesn't go overboard and the film is good, I'm happy to let it slide.
But the Cloverfield Paradox really is a string of nonsense. It's not boring or unwatchable, just baffling.
Incidentally, don't watch this for the Cloverfield monster; it has a screentime of maybe five seconds at the end. In fact, the whole subplot with the husband on Earth driving around and glimpsing at destroyed buildings feels like the result of reshoots and is irrelevant to the main story - remember Sean Bean in Silent Hill?
Also, there is supposed to be a devastating energy crisis, but the only sign is a blackout at the beginning. Apart from that, people use cars, cell phones, television... it feels lazy. It you want to convey how desperate the situation is, have characters on Earth light candles, burn furniture... show, don't tell.
I didn't hate The Cloverfield Paradox. The premise had potential, although it needed more re-evaluations than the Maginot Line before WW2. When the severed arm writes a message to the crew delivering crucial information no character from either universe could know (and again, it's not a character but a severed arm), it's not cool, it feels desperate. "Parallel universe!" becomes a catch-all excuse for every absurd development the movie tosses at viewers.
The visuals look neat; I'd be irked if I was one of the special effect guys and all my hard work went into this. Same for the actors: they all do a competent job, including protagonist Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Daniel Brühl, Zhang Ziyi, Elizabeth Debicki and Chris O'Dowd as the comic relief.
The real paradox is how you can spend money for great effects and a solid cast and waste them on this script. It's like getting a decorated chef for your restaurant and asking him to make a steak tartare with a rotten badger.
5/10
You know the kind of friend who is always desperate to impress the group? So he tells a midly interesting anecdote, which turns into an unlikely boast and then escalates into blatant lies. The more he goes on, the less you are impressed; by the end, even the initially neat anecdote becomes irritating.
The Cloverfield Paradox follows the same storytelling school as this lying friend. This story of a group of astronauts working on a particle accelerator but ending up in a parallel universe had potential. This feels like an early draft though, messy, confusing and poorly thought-out.
Plot holes don't automatically spoil my enjoyment of a movie. I don't give a flying goat how it's implausible that Indy hangs to the U-Boot in Raiders. I'm not bothered by the family in A Quiet Place managing a farm in perfect silence. I notice this kind of stuff and, if it doesn't go overboard and the film is good, I'm happy to let it slide.
But the Cloverfield Paradox really is a string of nonsense. It's not boring or unwatchable, just baffling.
- The space station ends up in a parallel universe. The new universe's space station has crashed but, inside the Original Universe Space Station (OUSS), the crew finds a member of the other station. Shouldn't she have died with her universe's station, like the rest of her crew? Why is she there? Why her and only her? Because parallel universe!
- A gyroscope and some lab worms teleport inside the body of a character - who is seemingly unaffected for a while, although he has stuck inside his body an object as big as a cannon ball and a miriad of crawling creatures. Why? Because parallel universe!
- An astronaut loses an arm, absorbed into the wall of the station. The arm later shows up, moving indipendently and apparently sentient, able to communicate with the group. Why? Because parallel universe!
- The experiment on the OUSS unleashes monsters on Earth - the same creature(s) of the first Cloverfield, apparently, although the timeline seems different. No upcoming war or energy crisis was even remotely implied in the first movie (if anything, they had the best camera batteries ever). The setup for this development is a fleeting interview with a scientist who claims the experiment may... unleash monsters on Earth (good call, dude!). Why? Because parallel universe!
Incidentally, don't watch this for the Cloverfield monster; it has a screentime of maybe five seconds at the end. In fact, the whole subplot with the husband on Earth driving around and glimpsing at destroyed buildings feels like the result of reshoots and is irrelevant to the main story - remember Sean Bean in Silent Hill?
Also, there is supposed to be a devastating energy crisis, but the only sign is a blackout at the beginning. Apart from that, people use cars, cell phones, television... it feels lazy. It you want to convey how desperate the situation is, have characters on Earth light candles, burn furniture... show, don't tell.
I didn't hate The Cloverfield Paradox. The premise had potential, although it needed more re-evaluations than the Maginot Line before WW2. When the severed arm writes a message to the crew delivering crucial information no character from either universe could know (and again, it's not a character but a severed arm), it's not cool, it feels desperate. "Parallel universe!" becomes a catch-all excuse for every absurd development the movie tosses at viewers.
The visuals look neat; I'd be irked if I was one of the special effect guys and all my hard work went into this. Same for the actors: they all do a competent job, including protagonist Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Daniel Brühl, Zhang Ziyi, Elizabeth Debicki and Chris O'Dowd as the comic relief.
The real paradox is how you can spend money for great effects and a solid cast and waste them on this script. It's like getting a decorated chef for your restaurant and asking him to make a steak tartare with a rotten badger.
5/10