TheRetroCritic

I talk a bit about Netflix's The Cloverfield Paradox .

After hinting for months about what the next Cloverfield film would be and when it would be released, The Cloverfield Paradox finally got a surprise release last night exclusively on Netflix right after the Super Bowl. This straight-to-Netflix approach to the film's release has prompted quite a bit of discussion in terms of whether the movie was just not good enough to get into theatres or whether this is something we're likely to see happen with more and more blockbusters, good or bad, in the future. Frankly, those statements are probably both true. With the success of Bright and others, we're definitely going to be seeing bigger movies released directly to Netflix, that's obvious. And yet, while the surprisingly good 10 Cloverfield Lane re-ignited interest in the Cloverfield franchise, the reality is that The Cloverfield Paradox would have probably bombed at the box-office. The great thing about this particular series of films, apart from its usually clever m

I finally count down my Top 10 Best Films Of 2016 . Sorry Sausage Party ...

Yet another overhyped monster movie in the vein of Cloverfield and Skyline . Thankfully though, Monsters is miles better than both films put together...still overhyped...but very decent nonetheless. The fact the monsters themselves are sidelined in favour of a cute romance and an actually effective and well-paced build up is both refreshing and frustrating. The post-apocalyptic look of the film is spot-on and the leads' perilous journey is pretty gripping throughout. It's just a shame we never actually build up to anything beyond two giant squid aliens making out... No but in all fairness this is a low-budget B movie and for that it's very well made and is admittedly a lot of fun. It certainly puts the odious, intelligence-insulting Skyline to shame and avoids the intensely annoying first act character intros Cloverfield put us through without also ramming the whole home-movie crap into our faces for 2 hours. Overall, well worth a look and one of the bes