Where I Watched it: Netflix

English Audio Description?: Yes

I finally took this Halloween season to round out the Cloverfield franchise by finally checking out this much derided entry. it deserves a lot of the hate being thrown its way, as it feels like a film that was made, and then given a Cloverfield spin.It barely takes advantage of the world created by Cloverfield, and spends its time in space with a rather impressive cast doing unimpressive things. It’s one of those “am I losing my mind?” Films, and deals with parallel dimensions and stuff, but nothing that would lead you to believe it was a Cloverfield movie until you see a monster in the final frame of the film.

The acting was fine, and there are some interesting concepts while they go through space madness, but with all the science fiction film and television out there, there’s hardly anything about this that feels revelatory or surprising. I kept waiting for an alien, and I got nothing.

I think by slapping Cloverfield on this, they killed interest in seeing a 4th entry, which is a shame since 10 Cloverfield Lane was so surprisingly amazing. The audio description actually does have some interesting things to describe, and some gore-adjacent moments, as people get trapped in walls, and things continue to fall our of reality. I was also surprised they gave the information at the top, and was totally unprepared.

I can’t really recommend this, even if cast members like Gugu Mbatha Raw, Chris O’Dowd, and Ziyi Zhang keep the acting bar high.

Final Grade: C-