Cloverfield Paradox 2018 5 out of 10

Cloverfield Paradox  2018  5 out of 10

An interesting concept that doesn't live up to it's potential.  Originally a movie called the God Particle this movie was slapped with the Cloverfield title after the fact which is an insult to the audience.   The concept behind the movie is interesting and the movie could have been something along the lines of "Event Horizon"  but instead it becomes a standard trying to fix a broken spacecraft movie instead of exploring the story it sets up.

The story features a group of scientists on a space station testing a device that hopes to solve a dying Earth's energy crisis.  Instead they end up propelling themselves into an alternated reality with Earth no longer on their radar.  They discover a crew member they don't know trapped inside a panel of the spacecraft with wires stuck in her.  Then other unexplainable strange events begin to happen.  The film uses many sci-fi space ship tropes in scenes that mirror other sci-fi films you have seen before.  There is an a scene that is straight out of Alien when a crew member is infected. 

 The film blows its potential as it turns as the crew tries to get back to their Earth and turns into a  predictable battle with the crew member from the other universe.  And then at the end they throw in a random ending that ties it to the Cloverfield universe.   It really isn't a Cloverfield movie -but that franchise name holds some weight so they decided to try and link it to draw more people into what was just an average Sci-Fi film

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Oblivion 2013 5 out of 10

Oblivion 2013  5 out of 10

I found myself uncertain exactly how to feel after watching Oblivion.  It was directed by the director that did the stunning  Tron Legacy  so I was excited to finally see it.    The film had great special effects, but the movie itself wasn't so great.    This sci-fi movie stars Tom Cruise in a "Last Man on Earth"  type movie about a worker whose job it is to go down to the planet and repair patrol drones.  He has a girl partner that operates out of a platform above the earth they are stationed on.   Earth was devastated by a war that happened after an interstellar invasion and is pretty much void of life.  Of course ever Last Man on Earth story you find out that they are really the Last Man on Earth and Oblivion is no different in that respect.    The movie  suffered from the same problem that most "Last Man of Earth" films suffer from....a really slow pace with only that one character on screen for quite ahwile.    The movie develops and has on ok,  but predictable story until a certain interesting twist.  The only problem is that by the time the twist happens I'd lost interest in the main character and the story and started looking at my watch wondering how much longer the movie was.   Despite the cool twist the movie ends with a very lazy and typical sci-fi invasion ending that I've seen dozens of times before.     After watching the film I went online and was surprised to see great review after great review from people talking about how stunning and amazing it was.   I have to disagree and I probably wouldn't see this movie again.  The best I can give it is a   5 out of 10.

Five Million Years to Earth 1967 7+ out of 10

Five Million Years to Earth is a really interesting little sci-fi film that came from a BBC 6 part series orginally (which now I would very much like to see)   The first portion made me think fondly about   one of my favorite sci-fi books  Inherit the Stars by James P Hogan.    A scientific discovery is made while working on the extension of a subway train that leads to so much more.  The movie builds from this discovery into larger revelations that eventually like Inherit the Stars explain  human evolution.  This theme is also central to  Prometheus --which I will be seeing coincidentally later this week.  Even with the cheesy special effects of this Hammer film--it was still an effective thinking man's sci-fi movie---whose influence can be seen in the works of horror film makers that followed.   

The movie takes place at a subway station at Hobb's End.....The entire time I was watching the movie that seemed so familiar....I had to look it up after the fact.  Look it up below and you can see how this influenced others as they paid homage to it in their films using the name in their stories.  John Carpenter made it the central town in his movie In the Mouth of Maddness which features an a famous horror author (modeled after Stephen King).   Several of King's works seem to have been influenced by this film's theme as well. 

Learn about Hobb's End.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobbs_End

It is weird when you stumble across an older film like this and can immeadiately see how later works t were either consciously or subconsciously influenced by them.  Like the case with Equinox and the Evil Dead which I noticed when I saw that film.

http://bradgeekness.blogspot.com/2011/11/equinox-1971-so-bad-it-is-good-7-out-of.html