• Home
  • Movies
  • Music
  • TV
  • Video Games
  • Wrestling
  • Topics
  • Latest Comments on Cult of Whatever
Search
Cult of Whatever logo
  • Movies
    Featured
    • The Living Daylights: Timothy Dalton as James Bond

      The Living Daylights is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 28, 2022
      Movie Blogs
    Recent
    • The Muppet Christmas Carol: Michael Caine as Scrooge

      The Muppet’s Christmas Carol remains the gold standard for the book

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 20, 2022
    • Nightmare Before Christmas 1993 1

      2022’s Christmas Movie Watchlist!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 18, 2022
    • Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio Poster

      REVIEW: GDT’s Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 14, 2022
    • Troll: Ine Marie Wilmann as Nora

      REVIEWS: TROLL and TROLL HUNTER -A giant creature double feature!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 5, 2022
    • Harry with The Hendersons

      Harry and the Hendersons is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2022
    • Fantastic Four Poster

      The five best “rogues galleries” in superherodom! (part 3)

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 28, 2022
  • Music
    Random
    • Bg Elvis 5

      Elvis's 40 Year Reign (1963-1964)

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 28, 2017
      Music Blogs
    Recent
    • The Beatles: Get Back

      What GET BACK reveals about the Beatles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 15, 2021
    • Simon And Garfunkel at Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam1982

      The Boxer is a song about being conned

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 4, 2021
    • Lady Gaga: Chromatica Album Cover

      Lady Gaga’s discography is totally out of order

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 3, 2021
    • Michael Jackson Thriller Album Cover

      Thirty years ago music fans said “Nevermind” to Michael Jackson

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 21, 2021
    • Queen II Album Cover

      On Queen’s The Miracle, and the importance of track ordering

      By Matthew Martin
      | February 16, 2021
    • Linda Paul Mccartney 1976

      50 years ago, McCartney dropped “Lennon” and went solo…

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 5, 2020
  • TV
    Featured
    • Big Sky S03e05: Kylie Bunbury, J. Anthony Pena and Katheryn Winnick as Cassie Dewell, Mo Poppernak and Jenny Hoyt

      Big Sky S03E05 Review: Flesh and Blood - Glamping!

      By Salome G
      | October 22, 2022
      TV Blogs
    Recent
    • Big Sky S03e10: Gang

      Big Sky S03E10 Review: A Thin Layer of Rock – Break time…

      By Salome G
      | December 11, 2022
    • Rick And Morty: S01e03

      Is Beth from Rick and Morty a bigger sociopath than Rick?

      By Jason Collins
      | December 7, 2022
    • Big Sky S03e09: Dedee Pfeiffer and Cree as Denise and Emily

      Big Sky S03E09: Where There’s Smoke There’s Fire – Stalling

      By Salome G
      | December 1, 2022
    • The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special: Dave Bautista and Pom Klementieff as Drax and Mantis

      REVIEW: The GOTG Holiday Special is a sweet prelude to next year’s finale

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 27, 2022
    • The Midnight Club S01: The Gang

      The Midnight Club S1 Review – A series of unfortunate events

      By Salome G
      | November 24, 2022
    • Big Sky S03e08: Reba McEntire as Sunny Barnes

      Big Sky S03E08 Review: Duck Hunting – I love a weirdo.

      By Salome G
      | November 19, 2022
  • Video Games
    Featured
    • Arkham Knight

      Batman: Arkham Knight - A fitting end to a trilogy

      By Tom Farr
      | July 18, 2015
      Video Game Reviews
    Recent
    • Splatoon 3 Screenshot

      A trio of Nintendo Switch reviews!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 28, 2022
    • Nintendo Switch Logo

      Looking ahead to the Switch 2: Predictions and Wants

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 15, 2022
    • Legend Of Zelda

      Can a Legend of Zelda movie work?

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 6, 2022
    • Super Mario 64

      Which system had the better launch: A battle of four Nintendo consoles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2021
    • Luigi's Mansion

      Happy twentieth to Nintendo’s underrated gem, the Gamecube

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 18, 2021
    • Metroid Dread

      Metroid Dread – Post Game analysis and sequel needs

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 29, 2021
  • Wrestling
    Featured
    • AEW All Out 2022: Keith Lee. Anthony Bowens, Max Caster and Billy Gunn

      AEW All Out 2022 - Review and (wild) Speculation!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 5, 2022
      AEW
    Recent
    • WWE WrestleMania 38: Cody Rhodes vs. Seth Rollins

      Was 2022 the wildest year in wrestling history?

      By Matthew Martin
      | January 4, 2023
    • AEW Full Gear 2022: Young Bucks and Kenny Omega Elite Entrance

      AEW Full Gear 2022 – A needed reset at the end of a tough year

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 22, 2022
    • WWE Survivor Series 1997: Bret Hart

      The Montreal Screwjob – Twenty Five Years Later

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 8, 2022
    • AEW Grand Slam 2022: Jungle Boy and Rey Fenix

      AEW GRANDSLAM 2022 showcased the present and future of the promotion

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 25, 2022
    • AEW All Out 2022: CM Punk

      AEW All Out Fall Out: All the CM Punk drama that’s fit to print!

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 5, 2022
    • AEW Dark: Ricky Starks (22/09/20)

      The future of the AEW World Championship

      By Matthew Martin
      | August 14, 2022
  • Topics
    • site logo
    Latest
    • Was 2022 the wildest year in wrestling history?
    • The Muppet's Christmas Carol remains the gold standard for the book
    • 2022's Christmas Movie Watchlist!
    • REVIEW: GDT's Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!
    • Big Sky S03E10 Review: A Thin Layer of Rock - Break time...
    • Is Beth from Rick and Morty a bigger sociopath than Rick?

    REVIEW: The Cloverfield Paradox: Netflix got me hook, line and stinker

    By Matthew Martin
    | February 6, 2018
    Movie Reviews

    Netflix has famously made its mission statement “we want to become HBO before HBO becomes us.” What started out as essentially a mail-to-you DVD rental subscription service has blossomed into a streaming-video behemoth currently found in over one-hundred million homes. Along the way the company’s focus has shifted from being the one-stop shop for all your old movies and TV shows to being the place where top notch original programming—both movies and shows—can be found. Using algorithms based on subscribers viewing habits (including which actors Netflix subscribers prefer, which episodes fans especially enjoy in a show and why, and even down to which individual scenes are skipped vs. repeated for fun), Netflix has figured out exactly the kind of show its viewers’ brains want to see. It’s creepy, yes, but then you think “the government is spying on us too…at least Netflix is giving us Stranger Things and The Crown along the way.”

    The company’s drive to be an essential original programming service has probably already been achieved, and thankfully they continue pumping out new shows and movies as well as purchasing the rights to distribute movies that otherwise would have gotten a theatrical release.

    Which brings us to God Particle.

    What started out as a spec script by Oren Uziel (writer of 22 Jump Street and Shimmer Lake) morphed into something else entirely. The premise was of a science experiment gone wrong, with the eponymous Higgs Boson particle (which made headlines in 2012 if you want to Google it) serving as the inspiration. The original story focused on a team orbiting Earth working on a particle accelerator-manipulation thingy device. They bring on board a ship full of European astronauts, who eventually betray the crew, setting up the action of the story amidst a sci-fi backdrop.

    The story was an original one, with a simple science-fiction premise, but such movies are hard to market and don’t usually make great money. 2017’s solid sci-fi horror film LIFE only made a little more than half its budget. It looked like God Particle was going to be passed around various studios, liked but not enough to be made, before finally being made only to fail at the box office.

    And then JJ Abrams stepped in.

    The director/producer made waves a couple years ago by dropping a trailer for a new movie called “10 Cloverfield LN.” and then announcing the film was coming like a month later. Turns out Abrams had bought the rights to a movie that was already well into production, changed a few minor details and released it under the “Cloverfield” label, connecting it to the 2008 found footage monster movie that he likewise produced. Cloverfield then became a Twilight Zone-esque anthology series, with fans wondering when the next film would suddenly drop.

    Word then came that God Particle had been picked up by JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot production company, and speculation immediately rose that it would be the next in the Cloverfield series. The movie was scheduled to release in early February of 2017 by Paramount before being bumped to October of last year. Then again it was bumped to February of this year. Then again bumped to April. Then Paramount sold the rights to Netflix, raising all kinds of red flags that the movie might have been a dud.

    Spoiler alert : it is

    And yet, Netflix turned around and made chicken salad out of it. How? Strategic Marketing.

    Cloverfield Paradox Chris Odowd

    Listen, this is not a great movie. Paramount realized it and that’s why they delayed it to April (where there are few big movies to compete with) and eventually pawned it off to Netflix. The movie is cheap-looking (despite a budget literally twice that of the original and three times as much as the follow-up). The acting is stiff. The dialogue is bland. The editing is horribly choppy, with a first half that’s way too fast-paced and a second half that drags its feet. The tone is all over the place, with one-liners happening at the same time grotesque insanity is occurring. And on it goes like this.

    Yet Netflix managed to get more people to log-in and watch it that there ever would have been to buy a ticket to see it, especially once the reviews started rolling in (it’s sitting at a 15% on Rotten Tomatoes). How? Strategic Marketing.

    After telling everyone the movie was coming in April, Netflix released a short little teaser during the most-watched TV event of the year, the Super Bowl. They ended it with “streaming immediately following the game.”

    Well holeecow, that’s amazing. It got everyone talking and with no advanced reviews, no one knew what they were getting, so everyone jumped online to watch it as soon as the Patriots bumblefarted away the Lombardi Trophy. Sure the movie ended up being “not good” but I have to hand it to Netflix for their incredible ability to sell me on a movie I might otherwise have passed on. They got me. The crazy bathturds got me hook, line and stinker.

    Cloverfield Paradox Poster

    So where does the movie go wrong?

    Apart from the flaws mentioned above, the biggest problem is in how the script changed for the worse as a result of the Cloverfield concept being brought into it. In the movie, there is no “other ship” that joins the crew. Instead the experiment sends the crew to an alternate reality in the multiverse (Google it, or just watch that one Community episode). Whereas in 10 Cloverfield LN. the only changes to the core of the story were at the end, here little changes are woven throughout but the seams are obvious, and result in a lot of the tonal shifts and confusing dialogue. It feels like Oren Uziel (who rewrote the movie to satisfy the Cloverfield interests) needed to do one more pass to smooth the transition between the scripts, instead it’s a story that feels too much like what it is: two different stories mashed together.

    Cloverfield Paradox Daniel Bruhl Ziyi Zhang John Ortiz David Oyelowo Chris Odowd Gugu Mbatha Raw

    As a result, by the time the big climax occurs, it follows so much seemingly random nonsense it’s hard to be invested in what happens, and by the time the twist ending (if you can call it that) happens, you’re left simply shrugging and saying “oh well.”

    I’m not sour on the idea of a Cloverfield anthology series. I think it’s a great way to put lesser or smaller sci-fi or other genre films on the map and to get them made when they otherwise might not be. It didn’t work here because the source material wasn’t strong enough to withstand the grafting, unlike 10 Cloverfield LN., which started out as a great little movie that only needed a few minor tweaks to make work.

    Points earned for trying, for originality and for the Cloverfield anthology concept. The first movie was good, the second was great, but this one’s a misfire.

    Cloverfield Paradox 1

    5/10 – Strip away the name and you’re left with a poor man’s Event Horizon without a willingness to go all-in on the crazy.

    The next Cloverfield movie is tentatively titled Overlord and is scheduled for release this October. We’ll see if Paramount sticks with that date, or even if they stick with the movie at all.

    Share this article:

    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit

    Tags

    CloverfieldGod ParticleNetflixSci-Fi MoviesThe Cloverfield Paradox

    COMMENTS

    Please read our Commenting Policy before you join in with the discussion.

    Note: If you have email notifications enabled, please check your email spam folders to ensure emails are not missed.

    Subscribe
    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    Notify of
    guest

    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    guest

    1 Comment
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    Georgina
    Georgina
    4 years ago

    You are right on here with your review. Two stories are mashed together with Aliens thrown in. It did keep my interest and I’ll probably watch the next one. However, I do miss Sigourney Weaver popping in every now and then. Just saying.

    0
    Reply

    You might also like

    • 2018’s Big Movie Year

      By Matthew Martin
      | January 7, 2018
    • Review: 10 Cloverfield LN. is a masterpiece of tension and horror (Spoilers)

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 12, 2016
    • Lights Out Review: What’s this? Horror AND a plot?!

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 27, 2016
    • Review: Don’t Breathe – A new “best horror film of the year”

      By Matthew Martin
      | September 2, 2016
    • JJ Abrams modernized Star Trek…at great cost.

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 19, 2016
    • In defense of JJ’s “reboot” of Star Wars

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 16, 2016

    FIND THE TOPICS YOU WANT...

    Movie Topics

    Recommended for you

    • REVIEW: GDT’s Pinocchio is my favorite film of the year!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 14, 2022
    • REVIEWS: TROLL and TROLL HUNTER -A giant creature double feature!

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 5, 2022
    • Harry and the Hendersons is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2022
    • The five best “rogues galleries” in superherodom! (part 3)

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 28, 2022
    • Spirited Away remains Studio Ghibli’s “greatest” film

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 16, 2022
    • Read the Book Instead: The most disappointing book-to-film adaptations

      By Oliver Johnston
      | September 20, 2021
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate Disclosure
    • Cookie Policy and Settings
    • Terms of Use
    • Photo Credits
    • RSS
    All Cult of Whatever articles, logos, illustrations and graphics are copyright CultOfWhatever.com. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. © 2021 CultOfWhatever. All Rights Reserved.
    • facebook
    • twitter
    wpDiscuz