Makes Paranormal Activity look legit.

Rating: 2/10 (16 February 2018)

I haven't realized that there were sequels to the questionable Cloverfield until I've watched The Cloverfield Paradox, and, while that movie doesn't deserve a particular review and could be summed up with "Mediocre, but passable" - this one really, really shocked me. In a bad way. What was the point of this movie?
Okay, the original Cloverfield has found footage, lots of CGI, franchise-setting aliens(years before Pacific Rim), some hero interaction, some hero action, but, of course, all within the ridiculously panned out camera capture. Still, it was "original". Cloverfield Paradox, again, tries to at least... add to the story. Somehow. It... tries, something already seen many times before, but still tries.
What is "this"? Mystery? How the hell is it a mystery? Horror? Eh...drama? That's a two hours worth of cheap sound effects that start nowhere, go nowhere and end up nowhere. That's what.
So what do we have? Apparently a basic b*. Who is running away... or something. Who has an accident, wakes up, finds herself hurt(duh) and... guess what... taken care of! With medical stuff and even a leg brace. And... that she is shackled to the wall. What's her first reaction? Well, most adequate people would probably call out, or at least analyze the situation. Because maybe whoever took care of her - doesn't want her to wander around, just like nobody wants patients to run around form the hospital. Pretty basic stuff. What does she do? All kinds of idiocy. All to find out that the mysterious savior... brought her food. Instead of any kind of normal exchange, she goes out like she is in some Saw movie: "Please, please, don't hurt me". Damn, the b* deserves to be done right there. But - the man gives her the crutches and the key... tells her to get accustomed. Wow. Okay. So how does she react? She sets off a fire alarm, sharpens the edge of a crutch and tries to assault the man. Wow. Hilarious. Injured, debilitated, hungry, not knowing "anything" - she tries to take out the man, who clearly tries to keep her alive. This is some JarJar Abrams level of script here. I bet the director asked: "So how the duck am I supposed to shoot that bull?" And the answer was: "Oh... come on... make it mysterious or scary or something. This is the best we've got and the franchise needs milking, so unless you don't want you paycheck, you better think of a way to make it happen. Don't worry about the audience. If they were dumb enough to like Cloverfield, they aren't going to complain".
Anyhow, over the next hour we find out that there is another guy, that the situation outside is actually bad, that living inside isn't too bad, yadda-yadda. All would seem reasonable to have a more practical talk by now. Instead... we get a scene, where our Wonder Woman(WW is probably only the 2nd dumbest female in movies, right after this one) crawls to a power room to reset the air conditioning and she finds... Well, supposed evidence that the man, who saved them - is probably lying. Later it goes down the road of Dawn of Justice: "If there is even 1% chance that he is bad, we HAVE to take that chance!" So... instead of setting up a controlled situation, where they can confront him... verbally, we get a lot of montage. Which, in the end, results in a pretty forced situation, where the man, who already suffered quite a bit from their presence, finds out that they are planning something. And, in the most fluffy way, the guy decides to take the fall for the girl. And he does that just the right way. Instead of either trying a lie, or at least saying something plausible, he says that was making a "weapon", so that he could "take out" the man and be "the hero" to our girl. Wow. The level of stupidity here has surpassed 9000. So, it's supposed to be a shock that the man straight up shoots him.
From there on, the movie gets to the worst part - the most forced and unlikely escape, some alien activity outside, our girl single-handedly taking out an alien spaceship and braving out to help the people in hospital. Because she is, apparently, a clothes designer, who managed to do a few tiny stitches and who just got balls enough to go Ripley.
I don't even know why I give this two stars. Maybe because the heroes tried to act... particularly the anti-hero. He really carried this movie. And because it's a Cloverfield movie and I was dumb enough to watch it for that. Because there are no redeemable qualities in this movie. No plot, no lore, no franchise ties, nothing. It's a horrible, unthinkable, C-level script that got the funding, the greenlight and the franchise name in the title. It could literally be the worst movies of late, if it was some indie movie. You just change the finale slightly, ever so slightly, and 90% of the movie can stay EXACTLY the same.

In the end, we find out that the man was indeed a bit paranoid. And had a quarrel with his wife. Yes, apparently it wasn't the wife, who took the daughter. It was him. Absolutely common case of denial. And now he wanted to save another girl, clearly SAVE, and raise instead. Yes, he didn't want that guy in there, but... as long as he behaved, he wasn't an issue. Some time could've gone by, they could've bonded, he may even have seen reason. If they would all get cleared and try to escape the house, fighting off aliens and trying to get to the survivors - I'd give this 6-7\10. Easily. Because if the movie dedicated more time to the actual franchise, whose name it carries, and if it had the script that made even the basic modern level of stoned sense - it could, again, be passable, if not decent.
Unfortunately, the movies doesn't do it. Doesn't do anything. It spits on you, it sits on you, it wastes your time, trying to exaggerate every possible situation, make every possible mistake and in the end - force the most predictable outcome. This is a clear example of how NOT to write movies. Because, lord be my witness, I've seen more creativity from Paranormal Activity parodies. The dirty and explicit ones. Ugh....