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The Cloverfield Paradox
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The Cloverfield Paradox was one of the most highly anticipated movies of 2017, as people were hot off the high that was 10 Cloverfield Lane and wanted to see more of the loosely connected series of films that has been playing the “long game” in terms of over arching plot connections between the films. However, Paramount kind of shuffled the film along, and the science fiction movie was bumped from 2017 to 2018, and then finally it skipped theaters altogether and was given to Netflix to distribute early last year. Now, a full year after it came out on Netflix, Paramount has agreed to release the film on Blu-ray (sadly not 4K UHD, even though the previous two films have made their way to 4K), and while The Cloverfield Paradox is not exactly tonally in line with the previous two Cloverfield films, it is an interesting sci-fi movie in it’s own right.
It’s the year 2028 and mankind is on the verge of extinction. We have suffered a major energy shortage, with cars waiting in line to get fuel, houses barely able to function on low rations, and the Earth in a MAJOR conundrum. How do they continue on with fossil fuels and green energy having failed us? Well, the answer is to build a super space station that will house an energy project that will funnel energy from dimensional rifts into our space, giving us unlimited power and resources for the foreseeable future. As the space station undergoes it’s first REAL test run in orbit, the crew is met with temporary success of the energy beam, only to be met with an enormous backlash that damages the structure of the station and ends with the disappearance of Earth.
AS the crew slowly begins to piece things together strange things start happening aboard the station. One of their crew members goes insane, a random stranger claiming to be the engineering officer appears trapped behind a bulkhead, and random dimensional portals seem to be opening in the ship. The confused reactions turn to horror when the remaining crew aboard the station realize that when you open a dimensional portal to siphon energy, that door can go both ways, and the space station’s inability to find Earth suddenly makes sense. Now it’s a race against time before two universes rip each other apart from occupying the same space, and hopefully get home to earth (which is having a few problems of its own due to the accident aboard the station.
I’m not going to spoil anything, but needless to say that Abrams and the rest of the writers/directors are taking the long game approach to revealing the over arching connections between all the Cloverfield films. The last two could barely be called connected unless you listened to interviews, but this one actually opens up the reason for the first movie, as well as hints at elements of the second. And with the producers stating that this is getting a 4th and maybe 5th film, we can be sure more “connect the dots” moments are going to be coming in the future. It’s an interesting way of creating a franchise, giving them their own autonomy in regards to stories, but very very lightly weaving in connecting elements that get stronger and more noticeable as the series goes on. The tones change, the genres even change a bit, but overall this was a fun diversion that was MUCH different that the other two films. My only complaint is that the film can be a bit generic at times, having bored so much from better films, as it doesn’t seem to gain any freshness or identity of its own.
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Rated PG-13 by the MPAA
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• Shepard Team: The Cast
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I can see why some fans were kind of let down by The Cloverfield Paradox compared to the first two movies. It’s not that it’s a bad movie at all, but that it’s a VERY different movie than the monster/pyschological thriller types that the previous two films in the loosely connected series shared. This is much more sci-fi/horror, with hints at the creation of the first movie, which may throw people expecting a similar feel to 10 Cloverfield Lane for a loop. However, stepping back and viewing through a lends after the hubbub and online rage dissipated for the last year, I actually rather like the movie. It’s not a perfect sci-fi movie, but it’s a very watchable one and slowly allows us to see a little bit into where humanity is in the first two films, and see why said beasties are roaming around. While I would have loved to have seen a 4K UHD disc, the Blu-ray is given stellar technical specifications with the only weak spot being a rather modest due of extras. No digital copy is included, but I’m just glad to see a home video release for this one, as I was worried that the Netflix nature of this film would mean my physical collection would be incomplete. Definitely worth checking out as a solid watch in my opinion.
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Starring: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Daniel Bruhl, John Ortiz, Chris O'Dowd, Aksel Hennie, Ziyi Zhang, Elizabeth Debicki, Roger Davies
Directed by: Julius Onah
Written by: Oren Uziel, Doug Jung
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1, AVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English DVS 2.0, German, Spanish (Castilian), Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese DD 5.1
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish, Thai
Studio: Paramount
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 102 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: February 5th, 2019
Recommendation: Solid Watch
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