“The Cloverfield Paradox”: How one bad line in a screenplay can destroy an entire movie
The premise of the “The Cloverfield Paradox” seemed like the perfect setup of a fun action packed sci-fi movie, but I ended up only watching about 5 minutes of Cloverfield Paradox. Let me explain why.
A few minutes into the movie we have the scene with Ava and her husband Roger sitting in the car waiting in line outside a gas station. Ava has just received a phone call urging her to be part of a high risk mission to an orbiting space station (something about saving mankind). She clearly do not want to leave Earth and her husband behind.
This small exchange between Ava and Roger takes place in the car.
That line at the end is so much on the nose that it completely ripped me out of the movie. No one in the world talks like that. Not one.
If you go… you and I… will survive. I’m afraid if you don’t… no one will.
If your wife is about the embark on a dangerous and long term mission to space, you wouldn’t say a line that. Never.
I watched the first 5 minutes of “The Cloverfield Paradox” so you don’t have to. Now, let’s see what else is on Netflix...
Simon Lund Larsen holds a day job at a toy factory in Denmark. He spends his free time trying to figure out why some movies work so much better than others. Byline at The Outtake, Movie Time Guru and CineNation. You can find him here on Medium as Simon Lund Larsen or on Twitter with the same handle: @SimonLundLarsen.
