Murph is watching old movies, I’m watching weird ones.  It so happens to be a genre I rather enjoy – speculative sci-fi.  That is, sci-fi that is just a shade off reality today and in the realm of possible.

Cloverfield Paradox is certainly in that genre, but it suffers for it.

So just for a second, pretend like this has nothing to do with the Cloverfield universe and is instead just a sci-fi movie.  That makes it a lot easier to watch, since you’re not trying to find links (of which there’s solely one, and it makes the movie worse for it).

Actually, let’s first start with the word paradox.  A set of arguments that appear to be conflicting, yet work together.  The chicken and the egg, going back in time and killing your parents… that sort of thing.  It forces some critical thinking and challenges our perception.  There is no paradox in this film, other than a catchy phrase to talk about inter-dimensional travel that has no set of rules to be followed.

The premise is simple enough.  The world is running out of energy, nearing the brink of war, and countries pile together to send a science ship in orbit to build a particle accelerator to generate large amounts of power.  Convoluted perhaps, but workable.

From that point forward, the entire movie is predicated on sci-fi tropes.

• multi-national crew that all speak and there are no language barriers (except Zhang Ziyi who can’t).
• The scientist that no one trusts, with poor plot twist
• The one dimensional commander who sacrifices himself to save the crew
• The doctor who’s also a faith practitioner, and won’t perform medical procedures
• The angry russian
• The drunk/happy irishman
• The giant catastrophic event that triggers the film is fixed with a simple solution
• A group of scientists, hand selected and trained to think logically, make illogical/emotional decisions without justification
• Random computer errors that kill people
• Chekov’s gun

Don’t get me wrong, I can live with few tropes in a story.  Not everything has to be 100% original for it to work.  Europa Report is a good example of a small(er) budget sci-fi film that works, despite some of the tropes.  In the best of cases, tropes are vehicles used to expose or familiarize the audience with a concept to make the story go faster.  If you see someone with a cowboy hat in a spaceship… you get an idea of their background.  In the worst of cases, tropes are used to make the story progress.

The bright part of all this is that there are some really good actors/actresses in this film.  The lead part of Ava (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) has multiple dimensions and is generally relateable.  Aside from one decision point that lacks adequate background, she does an admirable job of keeping the story grounded.  The rest of the cast does their part, given the limited character development.

The art is solid, the CG top notch.  The filming style is straight from the 90s, of running sideways down the same corridor, endlessly.  The foreshadowing shots are over the top.  I was waiting for the mustache twirl.

After thinking about it a bit more, there’s certainly a director’s cut of this film somewhere.  There are bits of the story that simply do not make a lick of sense.  Things randomly decide to “phase between worlds” when the plot needs them to.  Oh, someone needs to get hurt?  Let’s phase a body part away.  Oh we need to show something is lost?  Let’s phase it into a body part.  And what’s with any of the scenes on Earth?  They serve zero purpose.  Cutting all of that out, then adding in more space station scenes should have been priority #1.

The thing about JJ Abram’s and his fascination with the mystery box is that someone needs to know what that mystery is.  The joy of the gifts at Christmas is as much imagining what’s inside, as it is in opening them.  And you can’t have a mystery movie if no one is in on the mystery (for reference, see seasons 3+ of Lost).  And that’s the largest problem here – the mystery remains a complete mystery by the end.  There are zero answers given for anything other than “MAGIC OF DIMENSIONAL TRAVEL!”.

I like sci-fi movies for their potential.  The ideas and concepts often work as warnings or guidance to society.  Pandorum is a great example.  Cargo is neat too.  They both have flaws, and tropes, but they succeed at telling a consistent story.  Cloverfield Paradox comes close… very close, but never truly delivers on that promise.  I really hope some aspiring writer pays attention here – this is what happens when an idea is not fully fleshed out, and the editor is absent.  A rough draft, which is really too bad.  I so wanted this to work!

And spoilers here.

The only rational explanation of the final shot of the film (again, a sci-fi horror trope) is that this films tore holes in all dimensions.  In that Cloverfield 1 was in dimension A, and Cloverfield Paradox took place in dimensions B and C.  There are a dozen other questions after that statement.

We’re a couple months in now, so why not.

I like the movie.  More than I expected to.  The new characters had some level of depth to them, and most everyone had an arc.  There were instances of the dumb throughout, but on the whole it was a nice way to start fresh.

Characters

Rey is the crux of it all, practically a McGuffin in fact.  I like that she’s not a Mary Sue, that she’s able to make her own decisions and move forward.  I really like that she’s a nobody, as that string of who her parents were was frustrating from the previous film.  It (and the closing shot) portend to a true re-awakening of the force.  The battle scene with Snoke’s guards with Kylo Ren at her back was great to watch.  Very well filmed.

Kylo Ren is the story catalyst.  There’s certainly an arc, but it isn’t about growth.  It’s like peeling an onion and seeing the various depths.  On the surface he’s a spoiled child, then you see that he’s an abused child, then angry, then scared, the confused.  Doubt about truth seems to motivate him, and the lack of control he shows is amazing.  Sure, it looks like a tantrum but given the circumstances, every single one of his actions becomes justified.  Especially that crater in the ground scene.

Luke is a bit wishy washy to me.  He failed himself and Kylo, gotcha.  His guilt outweighs his reason.  There is no clear link between the Jedi code he so despises versus his actions.  The Yoda scene was expository, but required to push the story forward.  I truly do not understand how he can be portrayed as both incredibly strong and so incredibly weak willed a the same time.

Finn & Rose.  I understand the purpose of their arc, I just don’t see the point.  It could have been solved with any other plot device, like say a spy on their ship.  The entire gambling casino portion felt like a Lucas special-edition throwback.  You’re telling me that they felt more for the horses than they did for the child slaves?  Finn’s need for redemption and purpose is rather clear.  Rose has a little bit of it, but she’s used a bit too much as a plot device to move things forward.  Benicio del Toro’s character is the best part of the movie.

Poe Dameron.  Neat that you get to see the heroes fail, and the impacts of those decisions.  You’d think he’d learn from that but instead every story driver causes him to rebel even more.  Holdo is such an astoundingly poor leader it’s amazing that she doesn’t die from a papercut.  She causes 3/4 of the movie to occur by not acting when she should have.  Finn and Rose would not have left.  There would be no mutiny.  There’d be no final battle.  Poe learns something at the end but it actually goes against his character arc in the film.

Leia.  Or should I just call her space god?  Apparently she learned to control the force, and to a degree that we have never seen anywhere else.  She uses powers the Emperor didn’t have access to.

DJ.  The purpose of this movie was to show shades of grey.  He was a clear marker for that.  His intro was weak but his scenes were worth it.

Plot

New order still being around?  Sure.  We’re talking hundreds of planets.  Getting rid of one won’t stop them.  Getting rid of Snoke… that may change things.  Not sure how only Kylo and Hux are the only 2 people running the show mind you.

Being able to detect movement in hyperspace?  This doesn’t work as a plot device.  See, the order could have just ordered more ships to jump in ahead of the rebels and closed the trap.  It also took around 40 years between Rogue One (where the breadcrumbs start) and this movie for this tech to show up.  It also doesn’t justify Holdo.  Would have been easier to put a spy or some other mechanism.  Feels a bit too much like that Star Trek episode where warp speed destroys the universe… then no one talks about it ever again.

The Holdo arc.  Why would the leader of a couple hundred rebels not tell them what is going on.  She can clearly see the mutiny coming.  She even loses more people because of it.  And at what point did she tell Finn and Rose this secret?  You know, so that they could then DJ the secret, who would then sell that secret to the order?  The only explanation for all this secrecy is having a spy on-board.  See previous plot point.  Also not quite understanding why she would not have gone to hyperspeed immediately after releasing the final shuttle.  She was going to die anyways.

Snoke being nutso.  That part was pretty cool.  Extremely strong in the force.  Focused on a particular target.  That he was oblivious to Kylo using in his room was a bit weird, but it ended up working out.  He was a great plot device and does a great job explaining why there are no old people in the new order.

The casino scene could have been entirely cut and replaced with them walking into a Cantina looking for a criminal.  Same with the Moz scene.

Luke’s planet was neat.  The caretakers were a good touch.  I understand the technical reason for Porgs, though they are bit too much like Tribbles for my tastes.  The light/dark portion was well done.  Seems a stretch that no one knows of a planet strong in the force, but then again everyone is dead.

Luke’s force projection across the galaxy was like Superman turning back time.  He could have easily done this on the actual planet.  His death was ok, though poorly explained.  He certainly didn’t atone for anything.  Just acted as a delay to help with the escape.  There seem to missing some scenes explaining his personal closure after that scene with Yoda.  Also, is he now a force ghost too?

The last shot was a weird one.  The point of episodes 4, 5 & 6 (and 7) have been about the scarcity of force users.  Episode 1 did a really poor job explaining how the Jedi (or Sith) found new recruits.  Maybe everyone is force attuned and doesn’t know it?  It sets up some interesting possibilities.  In particular that there are no force teachers left in the universe.

Filming

I will say that the film is well shot, the images are well constructed with some interesting colors/contrasts.  I wanted more out of the music.

The writing seems like it was edited multiple times by multiple sources.  There are great flashes of brilliance (Kylo) and then it suffers from the dumb (Finn & Rose).  I do like that it throws a lot away and tried to start fresh.  Hats off to that.

The editing is rough.  There are missing scenes that would have helped move this along better, and there are scenes present that serve no purpose.  We didn’t need another space cantina casino showing us aliens.  We didn’t need a perfectly preserved impenetrable ice planet base that happened to have a very large exit in the back.  Also notice how they didn’t shoot from space, even though there were shields, shields that weren’t there since they used a battering ram?

Finished it late last night.  Thoughts included.  Slight spoilers.

• Bob (Sean Astin) is really an interesting character.  I think he’s the dad most geeks would have wanted.  There’s a particular scene that is 80s horror trope, and you see it a mile away, and it really drives home the theme of this season.
• Joyce and Hopper seems forced.  Joyce finally moves away from hysterical to driven, and goes deep into mom-mode.
• Hopper spends an entire episode making horrible decisions.  Narratively required, but not justified.  There were other methods to reach the same end point, this was a poor writing decision.
• Jonathan, Nancy, and Steve triangle doesn’t work as well as it should.  Jonathan and Nancy clearly have better chemistry.  It’s forced and corny, but you can see it underneath.
• Nancy provides too much exposition and little character growth.  Until the last 5 minutes of the series.  Seems a tad wasted.
• Jonathan does a serviceable job and surrogate dad, big brother.  He moves further away from self-doubt.
• Steve.  My man.  If they made a series just about Steve, I’d watch it.  He is the star of every scene, and continues to bring a level of realism/grounding to the surreal events.  His character arc is just amazing, coming to terms with the mortality of his fame, his role in the big picture, his openness with Dustin.
• Dustin has highs and lows.  There’s some good growth here, and he’s that trash talking kid everyone got along with.  His buddy comedy with Steve is the backbone of the tail of the season.
• Luke is great.  The rage he felt in the former is replaced with trying to protect people in the second.  His relationship with Max is believable, full of the same hurdles all teens go through.
• Max is interesting but takes a bit too long to develop, then just seems to stall.  Everyone seems to have a role, but hers goes away too quickly.
• Billy is something else.  Our version of the upside down monster.  There’s just enough there to realize that he has his own demons, and that he’s riding a knife’s edge to keep sane.  Borderline psychopath.  Some solid potential.
• Mike.  He’s there at the start and there at the end.  More of a lost puppy than anything of real value.  He’s the heart of it all, certainly, but that’s about it.  His dislike for Max seems forced… he’s a team leader but rarely acts like it.
• Will.  I won’t spoil it but he needs a character arc that makes sense for the next season.  He’s only there for exposition and story purposes.  Well, minus the first 3 episodes, where there’s potential.
• The supporting cast is top notch.  Paul Reiser goes against type and delivers.  Kali (8) hits the right note for someone who had to grow up alone and is full of anger.  Her posse isn’t too bright, minus Funshine (Kai Greene).
• Eleven has 2 solid episodes of growth.  The 2nd one feels forced, and teaches her the difference between killing and being a killer.  Her relationship with Hopper works, from her perspective at least.  She’s a bit too much the “golden gun” for the overall arc, as most of the other characters provide minimal value (‘cept Steve, that boss!)

The overall horror arc has bits that work, others that don’t.  The start is more John Hughes, and the middle gets into Steven King land.  Overall, I’m certainly satisfied but it does less than the first season.  The main issue is that we know 6 of the main characters in many situations (Mike, Dustin, Luke, Eleven, Nancy and Steve), and how they act here isn’t exactly new… and when they don’t stay in character it’s jarring.

It is still binge-worthy. It still makes you want to see what comes next.  It’s still one of the better series that we have available.  And any series that has a Mindflayer as a main villain, I’m in.

Related from Isey

Spoilers ahead.

Seriously.  King Kong dies at the end, Superman comes back from the dead, Maggie shot Mr Burns.

I watch the original Blade Runner every month or so.  It’s the director’s cut most often, the voice over junk is really quite poor.  It may be my favorite all-time movie, and I am vividly aware that it is niche/cult in nature.  That said, you cannot help but watch it today and realize how much influence it has had on the sci-fi genre over the past 35 years.  I mean, the Matrix would not exist.

Further, I’ve read pretty much every book from Phillip K Dick.  He clearly had an episode during his life where he went off the deep end.  He stayed sane enough to try and tell some stories.  VALIS… jeez.  Good luck with that.

I’ve watched most of Ridley Scott’s films and frankly, he’s had some really bad writers in the past few years.  Denis Villeneuve is an incredibly strong pickup to helm a complicated story.  Arrival is clear indication of that.

Blade Runner 2049 runs for 2:45.  I was in a cinema with full bore sound and reclining chairs.  It felt like a 30 minute TV episode.  It has incredibly drawn out scenes where nothing happens.  I don’t think a word is even spoken until 10 minutes in, as every step taken is deliberate.  In a world of Transformers explosions and a complete absence of character growth or story pacing, this is abnormal and hard on the senses.  We’ve been trained to expect a certain pace in sci-fi.  BR2049 bucks that trend, at nearly every corner.

The movie’s sound, art, pacing, direction, acting… all of it jives with the nervous confusion of the first one.  The director of photography deserves an award here… it’s on Mad Max level of quality.  It does not feel like a sequel, just like the Two Towers was not a sequel to The Fellowship of the Ring.  That is a masterful achievement after such a long period of time.

High level plot.  It’s 35 years after the first one.  The previous robots are all supposedly dead.  Tyrell is bankrupt.  Wallace bought him out and designed perfectly subjected robots instead, with unlimited lifespans.  Oh, that can’t be bad, right?

Agent K (Gosling) tracks down the remnants of old models that have fun.  Finds one.  Blurb about witnessing a miracle.  Turns out Rachel (secretary from first movie) had a kid with Deckard, something that was thought impossible.  Repercussions ensue.

The movie deals with a caste system, what it means to be “human”, what it means to live a lie, what the Turing test actually entails, and how the line between AI and humanity is much thinner than anyone accounts for.

We typically define life through four main criteria.  Eating (or metabolizing), Growth/Adaptation, Survival, and Reproduction.  Replicants, in the movie universe, only have the first 3.  When the prospect of Reproduction shows up… things get interesting.

K and his AI companion Joi have an neat relationship.  It starts off really simple, just to add some “life” to his apartment.  It clearly grows over time, with Joi seeming to evolve to meet K’s personal needs.  She is a clear enabler of his fantasies – and this is taken to the literal extent.  Her death, and following alternate virtual ad presentation, using the same keywords, makes K doubt what was actually real.  Same for me.  She clearly passed the Turing test, but was she an isolated and unique representation, or simply a tool that self-adapted?

Deckard gives up his child to protect it.  I know I missed some key parts in this story, as his involvement seems somewhat aloof considering he’s the genesis of it all.  His scene with robo-Rachel is even more confusing.

The Replicant hidden alliance wants to protect the child.  For some long-term purpose that isn’t quite clear.  Wallace (Jared Leto) wants to have her in order to provide pro-creation to all his replicants, and sends Luv (Hoeks) to do whatever is necessary to get that info.  Wallace has twinged of mania, but the end goal in the context of the entire movie, actually puts him in a grey light.  If all replicants could procreate, and all replicants can go through the character growth of K (and Rachel, and Sapper, and…) then that would be a hell of a story to see.  The base premise that Wallace would somehow have controls over these replicants is laid to waste by the end of the film.  I am either missing some underlying message, or this is a lost opportunity.

When you finally figure out who the child actually is… things just click together like a Sherlock mystery.  The clues are rather evident.   There is a lot of show rather than tell, which is good.

The end result, similar to the original movie, is that by the end of the film (and for most of it too) you are left wondering who is human and by what definition.  You can see the start of a civil war, one that can dramatically swing in one party’s favor depending on that child.  There are a whole lot of “what ifs” that remain unanswered.

Good movies tell a story with interesting character choices and growth.  Great movies tell it for multiple characters and then make you question how that impacts you.  It isn’t a perfect movie, but it certainly is a great one.  And one that I will need to watch multiple times a year.

Has anyone else played Tomb Raider (2013)?  This movie appears to be a near direct adaptation.  My guess is that the trailer spends more time on the setup than the actual film will spend on the island.

I’m trying to think of any game-to-movie direct adaptation and none are really coming to mind.  Plenty have been adapted… but a near copy?  This is really strange.

Other musings:

• Trinity is in the 2nd game (Rise of the Tomb Raider)
• Alicia looks like she put in a ton of work to get into fighting shape.
• She holds the bow with the left hand, then in another shot draws with the left hand.  I feel bad that I notice these things.
• That is not how any bow is drawn, unless it’s a kid’s version
• That axe is impressive
• Half of the trailer seems to either be slow-mo (for super jumps) or poor exposition
• The CG isn’t too bad
• I like the lighting and framing of the shots
• Generic sound/music isn’t too enticing
• The trailer appears to give away the entire plot of the movie

An interesting film from a meta perspective.  I’m just not terribly interested in seeing it.

Very similar thoughts to Isey on this one, Wonder Woman is just an excellent super hero movie – full stop.  My wife was super pumped before the screening, and even more so after.

The film is good for numerous reasons – though the majority are due to comparisons to previous DC films.  Zack Snyder films comic books, he likes painting pictures and slow pans.  There’s very little character development, and way too much exposure.  Suicide Squad was a change of pace, though there were still some rough spots.

WW has a good story.  Diane’s child-like innocence and growth is well paced.  (Minus that one scene that is never referred to again in the movie).  The supporting cast all have their own quirks, which is really quite nice to see.  The enemies suffer from the traditional “why are you a bad guy again?” issue that all super hero movies have, but the context of WW1 helps fill in the blanks.  I like that there are real stakes in the film, and that the happy ending is bittersweet.  Diane is extremely principled, and there’s a relationship built with her throughout.   DC comics were always about people relating to the heroes, and that was not achieved until this film.

The film itself is well done technically.  The scenes are really well shot, the lighting is great, the action is fluid.  There is a lot of orange and brown.  The brown is relative to the setting (WWI) but the amount of orange really caught my eye.  The music is well timed with the action pieces, and works really well to punctuate what’s happening on screen.

I really enjoyed the final act.  It’s a relative mess mind you, but the consistent casting and choices that are made by the characters generally work.  It feels like something was achieved.  And lordy, that final blitz that WW does on the soldiers is all kinds of cathartic.

I don’t get to see many movies at the cinema.  This is one of the few that made the top of list, and one of the few that I’d actually pay to see again.

I am ever hopeful that the DC-film masters pay attention to why this film works and apply those lessons for the next versions.  Joss Whedon is doing the final part of Justice League – so there’s some minor hope there.  Aquaman still has time to be tweaked, though I have less doubts on that one to start.  I think it’s safe to say that the days of heavy exposition are done – people want to have relate-able characters.  Sorry Zach.

I’ve watched both seasons of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and now Luke Cage.  All of them are rather highly rated, and I can see why that is.  That said, all 3 series are filled with dumbness.  Let me explain.

All 3 are superheroes with marginal powers.  By that, I mean that they are strong and have some toughness to them (DD is a bit more complicated).  That makes them more human than say, Spiderman or Thor.  Them being human means that we can relate to them more, and they are supposed to have flaws to support that theory.

DD has some form of OCD.  JJ is an alchoholic.  LC suffers from anxiety.  The issue here is that none of them ever seem to address those issues. They start flawed, go through the story, and remain flawed.

Let’s start with DD.  He begins innocently enough, then it just escalates to a personal vendetta to save the city.  And it never stops, no matter the sacrifice.  There is no epiphany here.  He loses the girl (s), his best friend, and the bad guys win by the end of the last season.  The reason that the Punisher stands out so much is because he actually has a character arc.  Hell, everyone has a character arc but the hero.

JJ is 5 episodes too long of moping.  The best progression is on her sidekick.  Killgrave is neat when you learn the backstory but after the 60th person that he mindcontrols to kill themselves, I get it.  He’s a douche.  I still don’t get the ending.

LC is JJ time two.  The entire series is about him being committed, then backing out of helping his community.  I dunno, but if I was 100% immune to bad guys, I would just walk in, take everything they had, burn down the house, and never look back.  The one where he takes the cash and then let’s the bad guys come back worse is just dumb.  The cops are dumb.  Cottonmouth and Shades are well-written.  Claire (Rosario Dawson) is well written.  Zip is not.  He tried to shoot Luke Cage in a half dozen episodes.  Like, at what point do you realize that he’s immune?

In all three series the hero makes decisions that go against all logical judgment.  They make a choice, then go back on that choice for “reasons” that make no sense.  To be honest, this reminds me a lot of the final two Matrix films.  At the end of the first, Neo understands his power and his responsibility.  He has a mission.  Then the 2nd one starts and he doubts everything.  What?  I get that bad things happen, I do.  Even with the best laid plans, things can and will go wrong.  But when the errors happen because of the heroes, repeatedly, that’s where it gets annoying.  Let the bad guy outsmart you.  Let the ally betray you.  Let the assumptions be proven false.

And I think the main issue with this is padding – stretching of material.  The movies have 2.5 hours to tell the story and a single bad guy plot.  The Netflix series have 13 hours to fill, but only a single story and only a single bad guy plot.  I can understand that the movies have really crappy bad guys.  Netflix addresses that by dedicating a whole hour to their backstories and motivations.  Fisk is extremely well done.  Cottonmouth is a solid one too.  Diamondback makes little sense.  Killgrave has some sense of pity.  Electra is solid.

Ok.  That leaves 12 hours to go. In each series you could cut it in half and it would be better for it.

The really sad thing about it all, is that it’s still miles better than anything DC/Snyder has released.