The Cloverfield Paradox (2018) Through the Eyes of Cat

By Cat

Number Rolled: N/A

Movie Name/Year: The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

Tagline: The Future Unleashed Every Thing

Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Mystery

Length:  102 minutes

Rating: TV-MA

Production Companies: Bad Robot, Paramount Pictures, Netflix

Producers: J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Jon Cohen, Bob Dohrmann, Drew Goddard, Tommy Harper, Matt Reeves, Lindsey Weber

Director: Julius Onah

Writers: Oren Uziel, Doug Jung

Actors: Elizabeth Debicki, Daniel Bruhl, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O'Dowd, Ziyi Zhang, David Oyelowo, John Ortiz, Aksel Hennie, Roger Davies

Stunts: Ashlen Aquila, Kevin Arnold, Daniel Arrias, Brian Avery, Chad Bowman, Stephen Bralver, Martin De Boer, Kiralee Hayashi, Alisa Hensley, Bethany Levy, Mike Massa, Darryl Reeves, Craig Frosty Silva, PeiPei Alena Yuan

Blurb from IMDb: After a scientific experiment aboard the space station involving a particle accelerator has unexpected results, the astronauts find themselves isolated. Following their horrible discovery, the space station crew must fight for survival.

Cat's Point of View: 

It feels good to be getting back into the swing of things again. While life has been a crazy rollercoaster all around lately, I haven’t lost sight of the silver linings on the thunder-clouds that have been swirling. Our weekly Digress articles will likely return after the close of Mardi Gras season; but for now, we’ll be back on our reviewing schedule. 

Today’s review was inspired by the Superbowl – the commercials rather than the game, itself.

Honestly, if I’d heard buzz about this film when I was putting together the Top 20 list for this month, this would likely have ranked in there somewhere. Some of the social media responses to the trailer airing during the game seem to indicate that it was a surprise for nearly everyone. Needless to say, the fact that Netflix released the film the same night as its first trailer broadcast made it too good to pass up.

This movie was confirmed as the 3^rd installment of  J.J. Abrams’ (Lost, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation) Cloverfield franchise. The timeline of this film seems to overlap somewhat with the prior installments of Cloverfield (2008) and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016).

I’d have to say that the movie resolves just as many questions about events as it brings up new ones. We get a general idea of what becomes a catalyst for events, yet there are so many loose ends by the conclusion of the film that there’s still room for further installments in the series.

I have got to say that I am highly grateful that the original film remains the only one that utilized the shaky-cam found-footage framework. The effects for this movie were rather top-notch, as well. Though, that is generally to be expected when the FX company involved is Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light and Magic. This film also shares a common musical composer for its score with the franchise’s 2^nd movie. Bear McCreary (Outlander, Colossal, Rebel in the Rye) is a hot commodity for musical composition these days, and deservedly so. The score set just the right tone to elevate the events of the movie rather than distract from them.

This movie has a few twists that I did not see coming, yet some predictable aspects. I think my desire to figure out what was going on and the hope of filling in as many missing pieces of the story puzzle as possible may have contributed to my obliviousness, but that’s neither here nor there.

I was squirming in some places, sad in others, and there was an occasional brow arch – but overall I was glued to the edge of my seat as events unfolded. I think I wanted to see more of what was going on back on Earth, and there wasn’t nearly enough of focus there – but we come back to the possibility that there could be future installments in the franchise that might shed more light on the matter.

All told, the movie was very entertaining and I enjoyed it.  It was a great way to cap off my evening after sitting through a sports broadcast that I generally find tedious. (Yay team, do the thing! Can you hear my sarcasm?) While some might find my lack of enthusiasm for football disheartening or even disturbing, it’s just not my thing. All the same, I know enough about the game to follow along well enough. I like the commercials better than the sport – and there were some hilarious ones this year…but I digress.

To get back to the point, I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending this movie – especially if someone has seen the prior 2 films. What do you think comes next? I, for one, will keep my fingers crossed for more. 

Languages

Speech Available: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish

Subtitles Available: English [CC], Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, French, Spanish

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 69%

Metascore - None

Metacritic User Score – None

IMDB Score – None

Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 4/5

Movie Trailer: