[ANNPRMEOW] The Cloverfield Paradox

[Kyle]

This is the discussion thread for the All New Nerd Pride Radio Movie of the Every Other Week!

This thread is only for those who have seen the movie recently. Commentary from people who haven't seen it will be deleted.

This Every Other Weeks Movie: The Cloverfield Paradox, selected by Tahlvin

WARNING- ALL SPOILERS FOR THIS MOVIE ARE ALLOWED! For real, if you haven't seen it, don't read any further!

Discuss!

[Tahlvin]

This was a two-click pick (I clicked through a couple links from the last movie and picked it), so I knew nothing about this movie before watching it. I haven’t watched any of the other Cloverfield movies, so I had no baggage, either.

First, it was an interesting cast. I like Chris O’Dowd (loved The Sapphires). The Russian was played by the guy that played the German in The Martian. The German was played by the German sniper from Inglorious Bastards. And I like David Oyelowo. And Gugu Mbatha-Raw did a good job, I thought.

The physics (or lack of) did affect my enjoyment of the movie a bit. “Simulate gravity in space by having part of the station rotate” works for the outside of the spinning portion, but in this movie it somehow applies to the entire ship?! And the direction of the centripetal force should have been towards the floor of the spring room, if that was the case, but instead it was towards the wall of the room. And with as fast as the room was spinning, stuff should have been sliding of tables/desks, etc. And wow, the Russian 3D printed a gun complete with 3D printed gun powder?!

That aside, the main plot was good. Alternate universe, paradoxes, it made for an interesting thriller. The lady caught in the wall was unexpected at first. And Chris O’Dowd’s disembodied hand drumming his fingers was a nice touch.

Overall, I’d give it 3 to 3.5 out of 5 stars.

[Mike]

Here we go...

I haven't read any of the above yet. Wanna go in clean. I'm glad I watched this. I would recommend it. It was terribly broken.

I love this type of sci-fi. Give me alternate worlds, conflicting dimensions... excellent... but at least make an effort at logic. The arm! The arm was so cool! But then the arm somehow knows that the gyro is inside Volkov? Who's controlling the arm? It's not OUR Chris O'Dowd, because he has no clue where the gyro is and is clearly not in control of the arm. But it's also not alternate O'Dowd, because that guy is dead and crashed into the ocean on the opposite side of the sun. Plus the arm getting trapped in the wall and then severed was all nonsensical too. Cool effect, stupid explanation. How did the worms and gyro get inside Volkov without killing him instantly? We saw with what's-her-name that when she is stuck in the wall that stuff just displaces parts of her body--super cool effects, btw--so Volkov should have just been immediately dead. But if they were in conflict, because the two space stations were trying to share the same space, how did one crash on earth and the other end up 186 million miles away? So much bullshit just to serve a very artificial mystery. Ugh.

On the other hand, I loved the moral conflict of wanting to justify staying in a world where her children were still alive. That worked for me. And the idea of the tall blonde betraying them because they all have the same motivation of saving the world... they just have different worlds to save. Cool. Or the German: in another world, he betrayed the mission. So our German is innocent, but he WOULD have done the same if asked. He's never betrayed us, but we know he would. How do you deal with that? These moral quandaries surrounding the consequences of alternate realities were the sort of thing I enjoy. I loved those parts.

The acting was all good. The cast members I'm familiar with are all talented. Any weaknesses in the acting I chalked up to the less than perfect script

I don't know if I quite get the point of the husband's narrative. He helps the little girl. Her parents are still alive. Was there some symbolism I'm missing that made this relevant?

The monster at the end? Fucking stupid. The "crackpot scientist" earlier in the film who predicted exactly what would happen when we turn the machine on? Ham-handed. I wasn't sure if the escape capsule at the end was eaten by the monster, so I googled it. It wasn't, but more importantly, I found out that originally, this movie was called God Particle and had no connection at all to the Cloverfield franchise. All that stuff was added in after principle filming. That explains a lot. I don't know if the original film would have been better, but it's definitely the movie I'd rather see.

I'm being harsh here, but only because I did enjoy lots of this movie, and it was so close to being something really good.

[Kyle]

Oh boy. Y'all. I did not like this movie. I'd seen it a year ago when Netflix first released it. I didn't like it then and was dreading rewatching it. On this second viewing, I decided to really pay attention to the plot to make sense of it, because the first time I watched it, I couldn't understand the logic of it at all.

I couldn't this time either.

I agree that the acting was actually really great, but this script was just terrible. The plot made no sense. The idea of "two alternate realities colliding" is an interesting concept that they said was happening, but then didn't-- honestly, I don't know what was happening, but it wasn't that.

The real problem I had with this movie is that I think it was someone trying to hard to create their own Event Horizon. So instead of making a plot that was coherent, they developed these really cool set pieces and then tried to work the movie logic around it. Disembodied arm? Super creepy and weird. Woman in the walls? Super creepy and weird. Worms exploding out of a dude that later has a gyroscope in his stomach? Super creepy and weird. But none of it made any sense and it was clear that they just really wanted these creepy events without caring how they strung it together.

And the insertion of the "Cloverfield" elements was atrocious and jarring. I didn't need Donal Logue (who I love) coming in for no reason and telling us the name of the movie and pretending like that explains the logical holes in the plot. I didn't need the monster. I didn't need the earth story with the husband who basically betrays his entire story arc at the end-- he finds this kid and realizes that even though his kids are dead, it doesn't mean they can't try again- but when he finds out she's coming back to earth he gets furious and tells her not to come back. Wait, what the fuck? So I wasted the twenty minutes the movie spent developing your character? Terrible.

This was a bunch of great actors playing out a high school fanboy's homage to Event Horizon. I really didn't like it. 1.5 out of 5 Event Horizons.

[Tahlvin]

Both Kyle and Mike mentioned the husband's plot line, and the monster at the end. I agree, both seemed unnecessary. Both could have been eliminated without affecting the rest of the movie. Perhaps show a little snippet of the husband hearing from ground control that the station has disappeared, but that's about it; eliminate the bit with the hospital and the child he finds, and spend the rest of that time fleshing out the bits about the colliding dimensions.

[buckett]

Donal Logue literally warned everyone about "the Cloverfield Paradox" in the first 5 minutes of the movie! C'mon guys!

[Zombie]

This was almost a turn off in the middle of the movie for me. I was having a hard time getting invested in the story or any of the lazy subplots. The acting and the surprisingly solid special effects were the only thing that kept me going. As others have mentioned, just a lot of it didn't make sense. Watch 10 Cloverfield Lane instead to get your why-is-this-movie-in-the-cloverfield-universe fix. Then go watch the best movie of Jessica Alba's career:

[poorpete]

Just watched it. My immediate take is it was okay. There were times when I got excited that it was getting comedic... the severed arm, in particular, was a much more enjoyable use of body horror than the other unenjoyable examples (worms in bodies, electrical wires in bodies, electronic doohickies in bodies). At this point I was excited for a film that no longer took itself serious, who cared less about grounding the story in a reality, than it was in being just fun. Army of Darkness-like fun. And then... then film moved on. Film tried to be a lot. Reminded me of the Deep Impact/Armageddon way of trying to be everything.

With a possible looming energy war on the horizon, it definitely played on my anxieties.

I agree the climax, where two characters compete to save separate galaxies, was good. Acting was good, though I was kinda waiting for Oyelowo to die, the result of any high-quality actor in a supporting role.

This is my first film I've seen in the Cloverfield universe, and if I didn't know anything about the other films, I'd have booed that final shot. As is, I just assumed this is how this universe is. Sure, fine.

That said, hey, it's a good film to complain and debate and converse on, so good pick for this thingy.

[buckett]

[Mike]

No offense taken. I'm on your side.

[Tahlvin]

And I'm not offended if anyone hates this movie. This was picked almost completely at random, and I had never even heard of the movie when I picked it. I'm enjoying the discussion about what worked and what didn't for everyone.

[mimekiller]

The ADVERTISING aspect of this is way more interesting then the film itself.

I enjoy the first Cloverfield film and LOVE the second one, rumors of a third that was that was set in space was a interesting idea and to see the trailer during the SUPER BOWL followed by the never before "movie available right after the game" tag was really interesting. I told my date at the time, oh we got to watch this as soon as we get home.

The MOVIE is kind of a total con job with what was clearly a movie that didn't test well get enough re shoots to make the cloverfield stuff a hook for suckers like me. The second time I watched this i tried to be more mindful of what was perhaps added(anything mentioning the world Cloverfield, all the earth stuff, most of the video recordings) and some of it is INTERESTING but none of it is exactly what I would call good.

So ** out of ***** for me.