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movie review - Cloverfield Paradox

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Netflix was promoting this sci-fi flick this weekend. I'd heard of it, but taking it for a sequel to the original Cloverfield I thought I would try it. The plot involves a crew of scientists who are trying to start a fusion drive or something like that. They're on a space station to carry out their experiments at a safe distance from Earth, and we see that there are people on Earth protesting that they are even trying this experiment because it might damage the planet and/or fabric of reality. Meanwhile, on Earth there is mention of war (particularly between Russia and Germany, which is always fun) because .. oil reserves or something. And then there's an escalating pattern of destruction in the UK for some reason.

I'm not sure how this movie is related to the original, but I guess I'm not going to find out because I gave up after about forty minutes. Because this film has many of the negative aspects of the first, such as the hectic camera panning, the lack of likeable characters, and the feeling that they're trying to gin up a feature length movie from a couple of ideas. The tension between the crew doesn't feel particularly authentic, and ideas and plot points such as the sudden transportation of the space station to somewhere else in space (where? not important I guess) have no pay-off. It's a silly, pointless thing that's borderline unwatchable.

Not a great start to 2025, I have to say. I've also noticed that Netflix is pushing a lot of older material that frankly isn't good. We're paying for a premium account but I'm beginning to wonder.

Avoid.