Pretty Good

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This is up there with the worst movies I've seen. And I've seen Arrival.

Maybe I'm jaded by decades of formulaic repeated plots, but what started off quite interesting (and the premise is interesting throughout) gives way to a forgettable, cliche, basic plot that leaves you feeling underwhelmed. A good effort fumbled a bit at the end. I would recommend this if I thought the setup of the "universe" would be worth anything.

The story is a complicated, complex stitching of several sci-fi tropes filled with quantum mechanics, physics and a lot of science stuff I don't know enough about to be impressed or aggrevated. I do get enough of what Data or Seven-Of-Nine tells me on Star Trek to think "that makes since. And I love 'The Big Bang Theory'. Other than that I take a movie's premise on face value when watching sci-fi. So I was intrigued with the story here on theoretical merit alone.The acting in "The Cloverfield Paradox" is lukewarm. The cast is a collection of notable talent, yet most performances either fell a bit flat or seemed two-dimensional. It has some pretty good moments that seem to happen surprisingly and randomly during some dialog scenes, and some of the action moments are cool. Alot of the time though you can almost hear the word "action". Not really but...Now I dug the special effects. The settings had an almost revamped "2001 : Space Odyssey" feel and the CGI is theatre quality. The last third is really the only indication this is a Cloverfield movie, and the ending is one you know is coming way in advanced, but it is a cool ending. I kinda felt I was watching more of a prequel explaining the real story about what went down that caused the first film to happen. Overall the film is a mixed bag but as disjointed as it seems it has some entertaining moments.

Well, maybe I didn't have very high expectations or my inner cynic has taken a holiday, but unlike the bulk of critics and reviewers here I found this to be a perfectly serviceable piece of pulpy sci-fi/horror entertainment. It's no '2001', granted, but it's a very good looking film with nice visual effects - especially considering the budget - with solid performances by a talented cast, and it doesn't bore you for a second. I'm willing to bet most genre geeks like me (by which I mean people who have a soft spot in their heart for any halfway decent looking sci-fi or horror B-movie), would describe this film as fun.And while admittedly about as scientifically credible as a superhero movie, it's not quite as dumb and far-fetched as many of the most scathing reviewers seem to think it is. What quite a few people apparently didn't get is that 'The Cloverfield Paradox' riffs on the very real hysteria that broke out a couple of years ago when the CERN in Geneva (Switzerland) conducted an experiment to find the Higgs Boson (aka the "God Particle" - which incidentally was also the film's original title.) The CERN scientists hoped to find the God Particle by simulating conditions in the Large Hadron Collider - the most powerful particle accelerator on Earth - that were supposedly similar to those in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang.A lot of people worldwide got scared shîtless by that idea, because they thought such a simulation could have unpredictable and possibly catastrophic consequences, and a couple of scientists even tried to stop the experiment by filing a case to the European Human Rights Court. The wildest theories started popping up in the media, like the experiment would cause black holes that would suck up Earth or open doors into other dimensions; heck: even a portal to Hell was considered a possibility, allowing demons to roam the Earth. So of course it was only a matter of time until a genre film would exploit the idea of a particle accelerator accidentally causing a rift into other dimensions and parallel realities across the space-time continuum.And let's be fair here for a moment: in the history of stupid ideas for movies - especially genre pictures - this certainly isn't the dumbest concept ever to base a sci-fi/horror film on. Also, by putting a Cloverfield spin on it - which, btw, actually is kind of fitting given it offered the chance to explain how the creature from the first film "stranded" on earth - the filmmakers managed to get the film a kind of attention it otherwise certainly wouldn't have had. It was a smart marketing stunt (as was selling the movie to Netflix) and probably crucial to keeping the film cost effective and being able to put as much money as possible into the visual effects (the budget for the whole film was only 25 million, and practically the only P&A costs this film had was the Super Bowl ad).What I also don't get is why people expect "hard" science from the kind of pulpy sci-fi/horror movie 'The Cloverfield Paradox' clearly is; there's obviously nobody who knows what would or wouldn't happen if other dimensions and parallel universes existed, let alone how physics would behave if they somehow "crashed" into each other. And of course it's all speculation and characters behaving erratically: that's part of what makes those films FUN. And believe it or not, that's exactly what I had. But don't take my word for it, make up your own mind; chances are, if you're into genre picutures (where solid entries with very decent visual effects are few and far between), you'll experience a similar sensation.P.S. In case you don't know whether to trust this review or not, just check out the lists below, and you'll see exactly what kinds of films I like:Favorite films: IMDb.com/list/mkjOKvqlSBs/Favorite TV-Shows reviewed: imdb.com/list/ls075552387/Lesser-Known Masterpieces: imdb.com/list/ls070242495/Favorite Low-Budget and B-Movies: imdb.com/list/ls054808375/