CloverField Paradox (2018) Review

Netflix has done it. Tonight, during the biggest sports broadcast of the year, Netflix aired a TV spot for a, Straight to the people, thriller of a movie that was to be released after the game. No press, ads, trailers of any kind prior, and yet I see here. Just getting done with the movie and I wonder “How did they do it?”.

I sat there for the entire 1 hour and 42 minutes in shock at what I had just seen. They made me feel as if I had just gone to the theaters to see a film that had been hyped about for months and I have long had the opinion that the Cloverfield series was in fact, a good watch, but this hit the ball out of the park.

We still don't even know much. We start the movie off with the lead actress going into space to solve the worlds energy crisis. Things happen, and it is tied directly into the first Cloverfield movie, as if a side by side storytelling. But what really got to me was that even as the movie started to roll its credits, we still were not given an explanation as to the events of how the Cloverfield parasite even got to earth, and it brought me back to the days of watching the first movie where I felt like I was just as much in the dark as the people in the movie itself as to what was going on.

Beyond the parasite, There was a human element to this movie that I think really brought out what the first movie was lacking, and what the second one (10 Cloverfield Lane) tried so hard for, we were battle an unknown entity in the first movie. And in 10 Cloverfield Lane the characters were battling psychological instability brought on by the unknown entity. But in this film, we finally see a human as the main villain, Or at least the villain that's in the way of solving the bigger issues revolving around the Cloverfield parasite. One that had to be dealt with in the present so the characters could get back to the task at hand.

Man vs Man as a primary and man vs unknown as the secondary plot points really drove this movie home with me. I could feel the struggle of the characters. I could understand (To an extent, this is a sci-fi thriller) what they were going through.

All in all, I really think Netflix made a great movie. And their secretive tactic to make sure that anything about the film was hushed until its TV spot, was a big bonus for me. In reality, we cannot have a perfect movie because, like the characters in this film, we battle the unknown with cinema. We don't know what new movie is around the corner that will be better than the last we have seen. So I cannot give this movie a perfect score. But I will surely give it one that reflects the hard work everyone gave into making this film what it was.

I give this movie a solid 4 out of 5 stars.