Cloverfield (film series)

CLOVERFIELD (15)

D: Matt Reeves

Paramount/Bad Robot (J.J. Abrams & Bryan Burk)

USA 🇺🇸 2007

81 mins

Science Fiction

W: Drew Goddard

DP: Michael Bonvillain

Ed: Kevin Stitt

PD: Martin Whist

Lizzy Caplan (Marlena Diamond), Jessica Lucas (Lily Ford), T.J. Miller (Hudson Platt) Michael Stahl-David (Robert Hawkins), Mike Vogel (Jason Hawkins)

A Godzilla-like creature attacks New York City and the event is presented via home video style footage, following an opening act set at a leaving party where nothing of particular consequence really happens... until the moment the city comes under attack.

A landmark film in regards to its experimental concept, visually it's amazing as well as quite uncomfortable & nauseating to watch, though this style creates an atmosphere which sucks you in and make you feel as if you're experiencing the disastrous occurences for real. It's as frustrating as it is thrilling, however, with no explanation to the creatures origin... The only reference comes from the minimal dialogue ''It's a terrible thing" and "It's winning"! A few scenes require you to reach for the pause or rewind buttons so you can try and fathom what it is you did or didn't see, and some of the dialogue is inaudible, but that doesn't matter too much as it's not a conversation-driven film. It is however, the finest science-fiction horror movie released from the United States in many years. The film received heavy criticism in some circles for exploiting the horrors of 9/11, which I think is particularly unfair.

7/10

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE (15)

D: Dan Trachtenberg

Paramount/Bad Robot (Ethan Darby & Lindsey Weber)

USA 🇺🇸 2016

103 mins

Thriller/Science Fiction

W: Josh Campbell, Matt Stuecken & Damien Chazelle

DP: Jeff Cutter

Ed: Stefan Grube

Mus: Bear McCreary

Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Michelle), John Goodman (Howard Stambler), John Gallagher, Jr. (Emmett Dewitt)

Aside from being produced by J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot production company, 10 Cloverfield Lane has nothing to do with the 2007 film Cloverfield (qv), which utilised a handheld camera style to present a hostile alien takeover in New York City.

This is a completely different film altogether, though it clearly cherry-picked its inspirations from several other sources, yet maintains some originality of its own.

Following a car accident, a young woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) wakes up in an underground bunker where she believes she and another young man have been abducted by a psychotic survivalist (John Goodman). His reasons for holding her, are because he believes that the outside world has been compromised by either nuclear fallout or foreign attack.

The story plays its hand very close to its chest, so you don't know whose story to believe, while Goodman's performance treads a thin line between pathetically needy and mentally fractious.

The plot twists unfold as the film goes on, and though it does have some ridiculous moments, it will still have you biting your fingernails on the edge of your seat.

It was probably unfortunate timing that the film was released so soon after the similarly-plotted Room (2015), which is a more serious treatment of an abduction-themed thriller.

7/10

Mary Elizabeth Winstead in 10 Cloverfield Lane

THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX (15)

D: Julius Onah

Netflix / Paramount / Bad Robot (J.J. Abrams & Lindsey Weber)

US 🇺🇸 2018

102 mins

Science Fiction

W: Oren Uziel & Doug Jung

DP: Dan Mindel

Ed: Alan Baumgarten, Matt Evans & Rebecca Valente

Mus: Bear McCreary

Guga Mbatha-Raw (Ava Hamilton), David Oyelowo (Jason Kiel), Daniel Brühl (Ernst Schmidt), John Ortiz (Monk Acosta), Chris O’Dowd (Gordon Mundy), Zhang Ziyi (Ling Tam), Elizabeth Debicki (Mina Jensen)

The Cloverfield Paradox feels like a pilot for a television show than it does an actual movie. The original shooting title was “God Particle”, but the title was changed at the eleventh hour in an attempt to tie it in with the films Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Release on streaming service Netflix, the film benefitted healthily from dropping a trailer during the adverts of the 2018 Superbowl causing a lot of interest, but aside from a clever advertising strategy, this film is a complete mess that has absolutely nothing to do with the aforementioned movies.

The plot follows a group of astronauts aboard an Earth-orbiting space station who inadvertently create an alternate reality and a threat of the two separate realities merging. In a nutshell, it’s The Final Countdown (qv) in space, but quite poorly done.

The cast is full of talented performers, but they’re all left stranded here due to poor character development and clunky dialogue.

Producer J.J. Abrams has said since this film’s release that there will be a fourth film in the Cloverfield series to explain how they’re all connected, but I’m really hoping that he doesn’t bother.

4/10