A Split Decision

Aboard The Cloverfield Station

The Cloverfield Paradox is a paradox in more ways than one.  For starters, it’s production was full of scheduling changes, story additions, ties to the Cloverfield universe supposedly shoehorned into the film, production company changes, etc.  While these types of changes are par for the course in many major films, TCP had them in spades.  The theatrical release date moved no less than five times across a two year period.  The film finished shooting in September of 2016, with release dates ranging from February 2017 to April 2018.  Paramount also had difficulty with how to market the film, resulting in them accepting an offer from Netflix to purchase the film’s rights in order to gain a guaranteed profit instead of risking the film doing poorly in theaters.   This led many people that were waiting for the film’s release to lose confidence in it.  So much just didn’t make sense about the TCP’s many apparent troubles.

Super Bowl Sunday 2018 threw everyone a massive curveball when Netflix announced during the game that the movie would be available on the streamer when the game was over. I didn’t watch the film that night, but have watched it three times over the last few weeks.

I enjoyed the film.  From what I’ve read on the web, though, the film has received a lukewarm reception from general audiences and pretty much total hatred from “professional” critics.  Review websites also slammed the film, but I’ve noticed something in all of the reviews of the film that I’ve read:  The reviewers didn’t really pay attention to what was going on.  They were so hellbent on finding something wrong with the film (in my opinion) that they didn’t really give the movie a shot.  I’ll cover this and more in my review below.

Spoiler-Free Review

The Cloverfield Paradox takes us aboard the Cloverfield Station, a multi-national project that is attempting to find a new energy source for Earth by using the Shepard, a particle accelerator that is similar to the Large Hadron Collider.  Why?  Because energy is becoming scarce on Earth and it’s actually pushing many nations to the brink of war.  Conspiracy theorists believe that using the Shepard successfully might produce a paradox in which our world would collide with, combine with, or rip apart other worlds or dimensions, thus causing chaos throughout time and space.

Aboard the station is a small crew of brilliant minds, each serving a different purpose.  The film focuses on Ava Hamilton (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), who handles communications for the station.  Her story is split between the station and that of her husband, Michael (Roger Davies), who is back on Earth.  They’ve been apart for two years now and both are ready for Ava to return home.

The rest of the crew includes the fairly straight line commander, Kiel (David Oyelowo), the lead physicist on the project, Schmidt (Daniel Bruhl), his assistant engineer, Tam (Zhang Ziyi), station engineer and all around glum chum, Volkov (Aksel Hennie), station doctor, Monk (John Ortiz), and another station engineer, Mundy (Chris O’Dowd), who provides some light but much needed humor in the film.

During one of the attempts at firing up the Shepard, we see an interview from Earth featuring a conspiracy theorist, Mark Stambler (the always wonderful Donal Logue), warning the planet of the impending doom to come if the Shepard ever succeeds in stabilizing itself and producing energy.  Commander Kiel barks an order for the interview to be turned off.

Eventually the Shepard stabilizes.  The crew believe that they are successful until the beam somehow destabilizes and overloads the entire station’s power.  Power is eventually restored to most of the station and then the crew realize that the Earth is now gone.

Commander Kiel has the crew begin repairs on the station as Ava attempts to make contact with Earth.  Weird things begin to happen on the station.  I won’t list all of them here, but one example is that Mundy’s arm is removed from his body by the station.  The arm is then later found roaming around the station on its own and communicates with the crew by writing a message to them.

Eventually Earth is found, but it is on the other side of the sun and it is not the station’s version of Earth.  The station has been transported to a parallel universe where Ava wasn’t on the Cloverfield Station and this universe’s station has been destroyed (apparently by the space time rip).  A new crew member shows up on the station (I won’t say how) named Jensen (Elizabeth Debicki).  She is this universe’s assistant engineer to Schmidt and he is apparently a saboteur for Germany, who is already waging war on Earth.  This creates tension within the crew as Kiel, Hamilton, and the rest try to determine what’s going on.

Back in our universe, Michael is awakened to a world that is apparently being destroyed by a new menace.  This menace is familiar to fans of the Cloverfield universe, but I won’t reveal what it is.  He also learns that the space station has vanished.

On the station, the crew attempts to find a way back to their dimension.  More anomalies occur and Hamilton learns that in this world, her children are alive.  In our world, they passed away in an accident due to something that she did.  She also learns that in this world, she stayed on Earth because of her family.  She makes the decision to stay behind with Jensen so that she can return to the parallel Earth to be with her family.

Without giving too much away, sacrifice and murder follow as the crew attempts to return home.  The unpredictability of the station and how it and the crew react to the chaos that they’ve caused keeps you on your toes.  It keeps you engaged.

The story rolls along at a tense pace, combining elements of films such as  Alien and Event Horizon to provide some wonderful thrills and “What the heck?” moments.  It definitely takes a little bit of effort from the audience to sit and watch the ENTIRE film and not look at their phone or Facebook in order to understand what’s happening but the payoff is worth it in my opinion.

I really liked this film.  Despite the many troubles it faced during production, the film is visually stunning.  The CGI is only noticeable with the removal of Mundy’s arm.  The station itself looks wonderful and the shots of space are excellent.

The entire cast did an excellent job with their performances.  Mbatha-Raw delivered an excellence performance as the grief-stricken mother caught between two worlds.  Bruhl was convincing as a man who is hard to trust, but absolutely crucial to the survival of the crew.  Ziyi and Hennie were excellent as polar opposites.  Ziyi fully believed in Schmidt’s work but Hennie perfectly embodied complete distrust and paranoia towards Schmidt.  O’Dowd kept things as light as possible for a crew trapped in a parallel universe and I hoped more than once that he’d suggest “trying to turn it off and on again” when the Shepard fails.  Fans of The IT Crowd will get that reference. Ortiz delivers a solid performance as well, as does Oyelowo as the stern but understanding commander.  Debicki’s performance added heavily to the tension in the film.  At no point in the film did I trust her, but she gave just enough fleeting hints of hope to Hamilton to make me want to trust her.

I definitely recommend this film.  It’s much better than the critics say.  You HAVE TO WATCH the film in its entirety and pay attention to what’s going on while it plays out.  What doesn’t make sense is supposed to not make sense.  Don’t just dismiss it as poor writing or “an editing decision” to save time.  This film is good.  Trust me.

Read below to find out why I believe that the critics hated this film.  Spoilers Ahead!!!!!

Okay, I’ve said that I liked this film and that I believe it’s worth your time to view.  So why do all of the critics hate this film?

1. You have to give your full attention to the movie.  If you don’t pay attention to what’s happening, everything that already doesn’t make sense in the film will be harder to comprehend.
2. You have to think a little bit while watching this film.  Most target audiences and mainstream critics these days grew up in an age where films spoonfed them every little detail about the movie.  The Cloverfield Paradox rolls along assuming that viewer has enough cognitive ability to realize that what is happening to the crew and the station doesn’t make sense because worlds are literally colliding and fusing with one another.  Volkov talks to himself after the Shepard’s overload because he is fused with himself from the parallel world.  He literally convinces himself to kill Schmidt because he doesn’t trust either version of Schmidt.  Jensen appears in the station’s walls with cabling through her body because that happened to be where she was standing in her world when it collided with our world.
3. They felt that the Netflix Super Bowl promo was a sign of desperation.  Yes, I slightly agree with them that this does smell a bit like desperation on Netflix’s part, but you have to admit that it was a brilliant and sudden move.  It offered the film immediate exposure on one of the world’s largest stages.  It gave viewers just enough of a taste of the film to peak their interest.  Only time will tell if this gamble pays off.
4. The still feel slighted by the success of Bright. Critics hated Brght, the Will Smith vehicle released a few months prior to The Cloverfield Paradox.  They slammed the movie and yet viewers still streamed the film and fell in love with it.  They loved it so much that Netflix already has a sequel in the works.  While it’s a bit of a reach on my part, I honestly believe that some of the critics intentionally downplayed TCP in an attempt to take a cheapshot at Netflix.

Seriously, this film is much better than the critics are claiming.  Pop some popcorn, grab a big glass of your favorite drink, and sit back and enjoy this film.  It’s not like most standard films these days, but it is definitely worth a look.

In all honesty, selling the rights to Netflix was probably the best thing for Paramount.  I honestly don’t believe that TCP would have done that well in theaters.  I can definitely see how marketing found it difficult to pitch this film to general audiences in the hopes that they would plunk down money to watch this film in a theater, but offering it on a streaming service allows people to see the film without really sacrificing too much.  I believe that watching films in this fashion actually works to their advantage.  Why?  Because there are a ton of good films out there that never get viewed because audiences don’t want to take a risk on them.  On a streaming service you can start watching the film and then turn it off if you aren’t interested.  It costs nothing more than a monthly service fee, and that’s a lot cheaper than a seat at the movies.

Again, watch The Cloverfield Paradox.  It’s a strange and brilliant little gem that I really enjoyed.

Thanks for reading.  Let me know how you felt about this movie in the comments.