The Cloverfield Paradox

All right, I'll round those three and a half stars up. The Cloverfield Paradox is, in my opinion, a deliberate tribute to the B sci-fi films of the 1950s, when the spaceship failed to keep itself in space without strings or wire and where the worst paid member of the staff was sweating in every giant rubber monster. But the trashy plot didn't bother me at all, and the actors I think acted exactly how they were supposed to. It's too bad that the serious situation game didn't last all the time and that it had to be interrupted primarily by unfunny escapades around one amputated but still alive hand (“Will it grow back?" belongs more to Monty Python or the Simpsons, not here), because otherwise I was quite satisfied. I liked the ending (aside from the last shot) very much and would say I won't have a problem watching the film again. (01/06/2019)

It’s terribly unfocused. The first half is satisfying overall – you can see the production values, the actors are decent and there are a couple of relatively interesting ideas. Unfortunately, it ends up strangely splitting into individual episodes where there’s always someone whose job is to scream, all while running around in the generic interiors of a spaceship. In a better written film, the final conflict between the astronauts of the first and second dimensions could have been a central premise, the basis of a fantastic dilemma and a suffocating atmosphere. But not in this film, which carefully walks around the interesting themes. The connection with Cloverfield is a decent base, but not very well delivered. I’m rating it at about 50%, I’m disappointed with the resulting quality of the film, though that could have been expected given the delays and the release straight to Netflix. (02/06/2018)

Did I really see it, or just dreamed it? The Cloverfield Paradox is the space version of The Room that flies with its silliness to somewhere beyond the boundaries of tastelessness, where it shakes hands with Robot Monster, Turkish Star Wars before heading to infinity. Julius Onah, along with the writers, is the new Tommy Wiseau. I believe that in a few years this will be a stellar addition to The Shockproof Film Festival, and with the help of alcohol it could be an interesting group experience, like when the audience of The Room bombards the screen with plastic spoons during midnight screenings. Hell, yeah! (03/26/2018)

It was passable. Although it has almost nothing in common with the previous episodes and is clearly the weakest, it's still watchable. Story-wise, it's a rip-off of all the better known sci-fi properties, but the kills are pretty good. Visually it's OK, and the crew is also passable, there's always something going on, so there's no boredom either, so an average three stars without a problem. 55% (02/27/2018)

The longer I think about it, the more The Cloverfield Paradox resembles an idea that simply didn't work out. An attempt that originally wanted to be part of an ambitious series but somewhere halfway through falls short of that intention. The resulting connection is almost an insult to the viewer because this time there are no surprising twists, turning clichés upside down, or even deepening familiar genre boundaries. The earthly storyline jumps from nothing to nothing, and the main attraction, the space part, doesn't come close to any of its thematic counterparts (Sunshine, Prometheus, Life) and is most notable for Chris O'Dowd once again playing Chris O'Dowd, which is as striking as it is liberating. Cloverfield was supposed to be an original series that turned expectations upside down. I don't understand why, a decade later, after the first film crushed me months in advance, its development is desperately clueless. (02/06/2018)