Despite taking the world by surprise when Netflix announced to the world that the film would be released immediately after the Super Bowl, The Cloverfield Paradox is not the event film that streaming provider thought they were getting.  Instead, it was worse–way worse.  It’s a bad sign for a film when it struggles to not only keep one awake but make them want to gouge their eyes out while watching.

Directed by Julius Onah from a screenplay written by Oren Uziel, the J.J. Abrams-produced thriller stars Elizabeth Debicki, Daniel Bruhl, Gugu Mbatha Raw, Chris O’Dowd, Ziyi Zhang and David Oyelowo.

What we know about the film is this: it’s set on an space station with a crew of astronauts from across the globe working to solve the current energy crisis that plagues earth.  The technology on board includes the Shephard Particle Accelerator and just as soon as they use it, it quickly backfires much to their dismay.  HELLO?!? DID NOBODY SEE THE FLASH?!?  OF COURSE, THIS WAS A BAD IDEA!

What was nice about the opening credits was how they were able to do a montage and show just how much time as passed since the space station, more or less, stopped working in the way that it should.  This is one of the few nice things to say about the film.  There’s a television news journalist (Suzanne Cryer, but is she reprising her role from 10 Cloverfield Lane or playing a different one) interviewing author Mark Stambler (Donal Logue) on television about his book, The Cloverfield Paradox.  The film gets its title from the conspiracy theorist’s book.  He argues that what’s contained on the station could tear apart the universe and put a ripple in the space-time continuum.  Also, he film manages to retcon the original 2008 film given that the station didn’t seem to crash and kill the entire crew.

The film more or less serves as a way to use the Cloverfield name in order to attract an audience but a decent first half aside, it gets messy from there on out.  It’s not the event film that Netflix wanted it to be–it’s the typical film dumped in the month of January and more or less early February.

Netflix released The Cloverfield Paradox on February 4, 2018, immediately following the Super Bowl.