The Cloverfeild Paradox.

For the third installment of the Cloverfeild Saga, JJ Abrams and his Bad Robot studio decided to release it on Netflix instead of in theaters. It’s one of the reasons I waited so long to see it as I originally thought it was a spin-off series based on the movie and I wanted to put some time aside to binge watch it (after Jessica Jones). Not only did I discover it was a movie but a pretty big one as well.

First off, the movie is actually filled with some big stars, Although in all fairness, all the stars are from “across the pound” as they say. I would not be surprise if the movie was a theatrical release in the UK, but they decided that such names as Chris O’Dowd, Daniel Brühl, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Zhang Ziyi were not big enough for a major US release. Maybe they thought Americans would freak out hearing Mbatha-Raw speak with a British accent (Even though I knew she was I don’t think I ever herd her do a movie with her native tongue)

Second, The premise for the movie is pretty large, The largest of all three movies, as it takes place on a space ship orbiting Earth. Compared to the original Cloverfeild, which was a found footage movie and the brilliant sequel 10 Cloverfield Lane, which takes place in a bomb shelter on a farm, they would have had to dish up some serious cash, even if making the film overseas manages the budget. Plus the film is pretty special effects driven so that can’t be cheap either.

For me when I saw the star power, that made it worth it, the fact that it was set in space was just icing on the cake. It looks like the events of the last two Cloverfeild may have caused an energy crisis that put the planet on the brink of war. One last attempt to stop this was a joint Space mission to test a device that can save the planet, but instead it propels the crew away from space and now they have to figure out what to do next.

Realistically, the movie seems to only connect with the others in name alone, and seems to follow a different path than the other two with small elements that might connect the two. Other than that, the movie has a decent story and concept, which is something all the Cloverfeild movies have in common, but overall it’s more of a Sci-Fi flick than a semi-horror movie. The other two movies showed more elements of horror. The Cloverfeild Paradox feels more like the Black Mirror episode they decided not to air, but I don’t want to discourage.

This last entry is not as good as the one’s that came before it, which is interesting, because every movie is so different than the others but some how the style does not match because of the way they decided to set up the story.

Still, worth taking a look at.