I liked the original "Cloverfield" because a.) I love giant monsters and b.) I love found footage movies. This is the third Cloverfield movie and it doesn't really have either. "The Cloverfield Paradox" feels more like a space-thriller sort of a thing, like Alien minus the Alien. Which is a shame. I never know now if Cloverfield's going to offer me monsters, scares, or spies.
What, spies? Yeah. As the movie progresses there's talk of espionage, war, information gathering, blah-blah-blah. I got a James Bond sort of feel from "Paradox" in parts, what with the espionage and all the British accents.
Plot: a tokenly diverse crew of astronauts (thumbs up for the comic relief Irishman) head up to space to test what's basically the hadron collider, but in switching it on they create a wormhole/tear in the spacetime continuum/alternate reality/big mess, causing general confusion and the Cloverfield monster to fall to Earth. But we see so little of the monster, and that's disappointing. Instead, most of the movie is the crew running around their little tinpot ship and gasping along with the musical stings. Instead of dealing with the monster they contend with the ship malfunctioning and each other. Yawn. (I have insomnia tonight, by the way. It's 4:03AM as I write this.)
When you hear Clover, or Cloverfield, you think of the titular monster, not a space station void of creepy-cool monsters. We do have glimpses of the creature, and I liked the ending, but this film would've been stronger if it capitalized on the mystique of the "creatures from the alternate dimensions," the Cloverfield monster included.
That said, I can see where the filmmakers are going with the Cloverfield series. The original idea for the Halloween movies was to have each installment be a self-contained story; that's why Halloween II doesn't feature Mike Myers. I think these guys are doing kind of the same thing with this. The original Cloverfield was found footage and giant monsters. The third movie is a space thriller. The second movie had you locked in a basement with John Goodman... (*shiver*).
What, spies? Yeah. As the movie progresses there's talk of espionage, war, information gathering, blah-blah-blah. I got a James Bond sort of feel from "Paradox" in parts, what with the espionage and all the British accents.
Plot: a tokenly diverse crew of astronauts (thumbs up for the comic relief Irishman) head up to space to test what's basically the hadron collider, but in switching it on they create a wormhole/tear in the spacetime continuum/alternate reality/big mess, causing general confusion and the Cloverfield monster to fall to Earth. But we see so little of the monster, and that's disappointing. Instead, most of the movie is the crew running around their little tinpot ship and gasping along with the musical stings. Instead of dealing with the monster they contend with the ship malfunctioning and each other. Yawn. (I have insomnia tonight, by the way. It's 4:03AM as I write this.)
When you hear Clover, or Cloverfield, you think of the titular monster, not a space station void of creepy-cool monsters. We do have glimpses of the creature, and I liked the ending, but this film would've been stronger if it capitalized on the mystique of the "creatures from the alternate dimensions," the Cloverfield monster included.
That said, I can see where the filmmakers are going with the Cloverfield series. The original idea for the Halloween movies was to have each installment be a self-contained story; that's why Halloween II doesn't feature Mike Myers. I think these guys are doing kind of the same thing with this. The original Cloverfield was found footage and giant monsters. The third movie is a space thriller. The second movie had you locked in a basement with John Goodman... (*shiver*).