FilmSnobReviews

Title: The Cloverfield Paradox
MPAA Rating: TV-MA
Director: Julius Onah
Starring: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Daniel Brühl
Runtime: 1 hr 42 mins

What It Is: The Shepard is a vessel launched into space in order to get a new resource for electricity going in order to end this oil war occurring on Earth. A multi-cultural cast of astronauts from various countries must get the station operational in order to end this. When they get the machine to function they soon realize that the earth is gone. What’s happened? Did the Earth explode or has something completely unexpected happened instead.

What We Think: So the film got a ton of flack upon its release. Most of that was overwrought, however, that being said the film isn’t all that great. Its script is absolute nonsense. Great actors are in this film and they’re given zilch to work with and less than that to say of any interest. I’ve seen all these actors in better movies. Chris O’Dowd is the standout for me. Dude is funny, but he really is an important cog in the Shepard. Onah tries to direct this thing but it feels too big for him. Like he can’t fan-dangle the whole thing.

Our Grade: D+, Not a great Cloverfield film. Not like the original which was good, or 10 Cloverfield Lane which was a great surprise. This doesn’t have near the story, suspense or gravitas of the previous two. I don’t recommend this film, and I say that despite the ease with which one could watch this film. It’s a Netflix original which continues a streak of bad flick by the streaming service. Will they ever figure it out? Keep it here we’ve got plenty of releases coming out that’ll determine that. Regardless Gugu Mbatha-Raw deserves more than this. She’s a really talented actress. Stop working with Netflix girl…please.