Directed by Julius Onah

Starring: Daniel Bruhl, David Oyelowo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Elizabeth Debecki, Chris O'Dowd

Well this came out of nowhere didn't it? Just as the last film in the Cloverfield series sprung out of nowhere, they decided to go a different route to once take us by surprise again. This time, releasing the film on Netflix after the Super Bowl, which showed the first ever trailer for it during the game. So you can imagine many people's excitement, and I have to say I was super pleased to see this announcement. Was I super pleased to see the film the next morning though? Not so much. What started out as a little bit of hype, quickly developed into a very 'meh' experience.

So the film begins with Ava Hamilton (Mbatha-Raw) leaving her husband on Earth to work on a space station that may help sustain their world and find a new source of power. When Ava and her crew accidentally find themselves in a different dimension due to a test, their fight for survival becomes a horrific ordeal.

Now, what the Cloverfield franchise is great at doing is adding something new to each film. The first Cloverfield is a found footage monster movie. 10 Cloverfield Lane is an intense thriller and if you want to include Super 8 in there - it's a great coming of age movie. The Cloverfield Paradox however is something we've seen to many times before. A group of scientists on board a space vessel confined with other worldly creatures and horrors. You'll all be thinking of Alien, which this film takes from a whole lot. And not just little bits and pieces, there are so many elements of Alien in the film that it just feels so unoriginal. Hell, even last year's Life is ripped off, and that was a rip off of Alien! I don't think it's wrong to take inspiration from other films, but here it just feels very obnoxious and lazy.

The writing is very all over the place too. Whilst the film does display some interesting ideas and does do them some justice now and again - they're not developed on enough and a lot of the strange things the crew encounter aren't even batted an eyelid at (Chris O'Dowd's character and an arm.) That's not the fault of the actors, as there are some genuinely serviceable performances here. Mbatha-Raw, Bruhl and O'Dowd are all examples of actors in the film who at least try their best with the writing they have, but it's ultimately not enough to celebrate.

Between this and everything else, there is a subplot with Hamilton's husband which provides very little and really throws you off track with the main plot. It gets annoying and it's nothing you really want to see when all the action is going on in the other dimension. It does help with some elements of Hamilton's development of character (the only one who really does get development) but unfortunately it goes nowhere. The film also looks pretty enough for the most part, but those wanting a new sci-fi experience won't get much. It's just your bog-standard space movie. Sorry.

There are some decent things done but really this film has nothing on its predecessors. There's talk about another film already in the works set in WWII and that sounds great, but can we please learn something from the mistakes of this one? I'm sure they will, but The Cloverfield Paradox makes me hesitant. It would have been nice, despite the surprise release, to see something special, but maybe that's just a bit too much to ask for. 

4/10