Review of The Cloverfield Paradox (2018) by K Nife C — 04 Feb 2018

This is the best episode of Black Mirror yet! Seriously though, the Cloverfield trilogy might as well be an anthology series in its own right. Starting with what is one of the most insipid found footage blockbusters of all time thanks to Hud screaming "Marlena" 1000 too many times, I wouldn't have found myself invested in the series had it not been for the compelling and resigned sequel 10 Cloverfield Lane. Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman provided an excellent character study that stood in stark contrast to the generic Godzilla meets Blair Witch Project of the first film. That is until the anus monster shows up at the end.

The Cloverfield Paradox owes so much to every notable science fiction film that preceded it, thus it exists within a ubiquitous framework of that genre's conventions and visual language. There's body horror, real world physics-based set-pieces, and cabin fever-induced interpersonal conflicts as one would come to expect. On top of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Event Horizon, and Interstellar you get the added bonus of Philadelphia Project dimensional displacement and anomalies. As you will come to find, the upside of slamming two alternate realities together is that the film makers can get away with absolutely any half-baked sci-fi trope with impunity.

The downside of slamming two alternate realities together is that there are a few plot points that make absolutely no tangible sense. Namely, when someone's arm gets displaced into an alternate reality, it moves and acts with conscious agency. It's certainly no Primer either, so there wasn't much thought put into rectifying multiple timelines' pasts and futures amidst the dimensional hopping. All of it is excusable in my mind due to the simple fact that the movie is pants-crapping insane. It is silly sci-fi schlock that isn't trying to tie itself to realism in any capacity aside from its emotional and imaginative boundaries, and it does so with such a clear intent to eschew logic that it captures your disbelief and rides it.