THE CLOVERFIELD PARADOX is a film five sizes too small in scope and imagination for its tantalizingly outsized ideas. A waste of a perfectly good cast (Gugu Mbatha-Raw in more lead roles!) and series (loved the last two). It works best when it leans into its sometimes comically bad screenplay and accepts its ridiculousness, but those moments are frustratingly few. For a movie in which Chris O’Dowd’s arm becomes a multidimensional plot point, it’s shockingly staid.
Longer thoughts in my full review of the film for Strange Horizons.
