Movie Review

The Cloverfield Paradox

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The Cloverfield Paradox
**½ out of five stars


A Netflix original movie, The Cloverfield Paradox is the third entry in producer J.J. Abrams’s loosely-connected Cloverfield series. Whereas the original Cloverfield was like a cross between Godzilla and The Blair Witch Project, and 10 Cloverfield Lane a post-apocalyptic mystery thriller, The Cloverfield Paradox could be described as a blending of the claustrophobic, space station-set suspense of Alien and the heady science concepts found in Star Trek.
In the near future, Earth faces a global energy crisis. The orbiting Cloverfield Station tests the Shepard particle accelerator in an attempt to find a source of infinite energy. The latest test seems successful, but strange things happen and it appears that the station and its crew have been transported to a parallel universe.
Cloverfield Paradox is an entirely different beast from either of its predecessors. The film switches between the action on the station and events back on Earth involving Michael Hamilton (played by Roger Davies), the husband of the station’s communications officer Ava (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). Ava and Michael are given a tragic backstory, and this adds a human element to the proceedings.
While the acting is quite good and the scientific concepts raised intriguing, the film’s narrative is meandering and underdeveloped. I’d mostly recommend it to Cloverfield fans and those interested by the film’s premise. There are worse films out there, but to find a true classic one needs to fire up their own particle accelerator and venture to another universe.

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