The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

The creators of the Cloverfield movies seem to be developing the series in a way akin to going into a bookshop, selecting books from different sections and finding ways to connect the disparate genres with an overarching universe, and so one dimension of this third movie to enjoy is seeing how their intellectual writers' game ends up tying together this scifi set on a space station to an underground abduction thriller and a much earlier found-footage creature feature, but the other dimension - simply enjoying each movie as a standalone - is where these movies - and this movie yet again - fall down because while the universal ties are intriguing, it doesn't take an astrophysicist to see the two dimensions do not co-exist very well, with poor plotting (spaceships that eat arms but then don't, inexplicable magnet troubles and astronauts who one minute don't know what is going on and the next know that flicking a switch reverses dimensional shifts) letting down the grander plans for the series.

★★☆☆☆

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10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

*SPOILER ALERT*

A captive woman, always one to flee at the first sign of trouble, learns to, er, bunker down and fight, in J J Abrams' thriller full of painstakingly plotted minor details and enormous gaping unanswered bigger questions, making this a not very impressive movie except for the menace of John Goodman's captor, a doomsday prepper who may not be telling the truth about what lies beyond the airsealed bunker doors (an air filtration system in a stupid place, for one thing, and another problem which turns out to be nothing that a stiff drink and a smoke can't sort out, so calm down, Houston).

★★☆☆☆

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