Netflix has proven itself to be a pretty brazen competitor to the traditional Hollywood studios and distributors. And it’s pushed the envelope yet again with its latest endeavour. A year ago, we knew that the next film in the Cloverfield franchise was underway. We had a working title (The God Particle), and a short logline. Then, on Super Bowl Sunday of all things, Netflix announces that not only does it have the film ready, we get a teaser trailer during the biggest sporting event of the year, and are told the movie drops THAT NIGHT after the game. It’s a hail Mary play on a high concept flick. But the producers know from experience that ballsy and mysterious tend to pay off. The result? The Cloverfield Paradox. And while it’s certainly a pleasant surprise gift from Netflix, it does play fast and loose with the accepted “rules” of a franchise.

“These aren’t the things we know, because they don’t belong to us.”

In the “not to distant future,” the world is on the brink of war in the midst of a global energy crisis. Ava Hamilton (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and a group of international scientists go into space to test a new particle accelerator, with the potential to supply free energy for the planet. After two years of failures, the group successfully fires the device, but the resulting power surge leaves the crew stranded on their station. They’ve lost contact with Earth, a few crucial items, and have seemingly picked up a few new things they didn’t expect. It’s your basic claustrophobic space setup, but it’s not without a few decent twists, and a fun payoff.

There’s no shortage of lonely space station films. Just last year, we did get Life, or Alien-lite. Cloverfield Paradox takes a very similar setup, but quickly sends it in a completely different direction with probably the ultimate “oh shit!” moment ever produced in sci-fi. From there, you get a couple generic scares, but a few cleverly executed creepy bits (the foosball table was oddly unsettling). The film is hampered down by what seems like too much lazy exposition. But if you can get past the unnecessary jargon, and just get to the craziness, there’s a certainly a good time to be had.

“Those who’ve accepted the Cloverfield Paradox as real, know how dangerous it is. . .”

The Cloverfield Paradox brings together a perfectly solid cast, who don’t always come across as professional scientists who’ve lived together for two years, but they do approach the strange and frightening with all the proper hesitation and “what the fucks,” as expected. Oddly enough, for a film that is based almost entirely in an isolated space station, the most compelling scenes are the ones taking place on Earth during the crisis. And that brings us to one of the film’s strengths, that also doubles as an unfortunate drawback as soon as you think about it too long.

*Light Spoilers below*

Unlike the previous 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Cloverfield Paradox has opted to tie directly back to the original film in the franchise. Now, this leads to all sorts of questions about how it all comes together, and what it means going forward. And of course, just like the previous films’ viral campaigns, it’s a lot of fun playing the guessing game. And yes, it does lead to a deliciously executed payoff at the end. It was fun, and actually unexpected. This Guy can say, “they got me.”

“That’s my fucking arm.”

Where the film falters is in the glaring obviousness of the franchise tie-ins and callbacks. There are exactly three short scenes in this film that work to tie it to the original Cloverfield film. They all take place on Earth, and are very clearly not present in the original script of the film. You can tell they were added in after the fact to properly connect the dots. If you remove these short scenes, nothing of the core film, or the overall story is changed in the slightest, and it could very well have released theatrically under its original title, God Particle. The tie-ins feel even stranger when you remember that this is not the last film in the series; a fourth is already planned and underway (a period film set in WWII, regarding supernatural Nazi experiments). If you wish for a franchise to eventually come full circle, why not save it for the final instalment?

To say this is the weakest of the Cloverfield films is to do it a disservice. The Cloverfield Paradox is a well put together sci-fi thriller, with enough twists and turns to satisfy most.And fans of the series should be sated as well. While 10 Cloverfield Lane was a masterwork of tension, The Cloverfield Paradox is happy to deliver a competent story, a few key moments of fan service, and call it a day. It’s well worth a watch for franchise and sci-fi fans alike, and tenuously connected or not, it does open up some interesting doors for the future of the series.

This Guy Scores It: 6.5/10

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