When I saw this movie recommended on my Netflix roster, I was intrigued. I asked myself three questions: (1) There’s a sequel to “10 Cloverfield Lane?” (2) Could it possibly live up to its predecessor? and (3) Would I be able to watch John Goodman go absolutely ham again?

As I got deeper and deeper into the film, I began to answer those questions for myself.

One thing I figured out quickly is that the Cloverfield films, while they’re made under the same name, are a part of the same trilogy and belong to the same universe, so to speak, they’re unrelated. What I mean by that is, they don’t follow one another in storyline or plot. The characters that appear in “10 Cloverfield Lane” do not appear in “The Cloverfield Paradox.”

However, it appears that they belong to the same universe in the sense that the alien apocalypse within the movies is similar across the board. It seems paradoxical, almost, that these two films would belong to the same universe, as “The Cloverfield Paradox” experiences quite a bit of universe-shifting.

The film takes place in a futuristic era where Earth’s energy sources have been depleted, causing wars to be waged and havoc to be wreaked across the globe. Astronauts venture into space to test an accelerator that may aid Earth in its energy crisis.

However, their trip goes awry. The accelerator, too powerful for its own good, blasts the astronauts into another dimension. This is where the guessing game begins. It becomes harder and harder to determine what is real and what is not, what has spawned from this new dimension and what belongs to the old dimension.

I think that’s what I liked the most about this movie. It kept me on my toes, and I was asking questions the entire time. There was never a dull moment, and I enjoyed hypothesizing what was to come from each scene.

When I searched the movie on Google, I saw that it had several bad ratings from multiple different sources, which I was honestly quite shocked about. While the film certainly has a different feel from “10 Cloverfield Lane,” I didn’t think it deserved the reviews that it received.

I suppose the validity of said reviews is relative to the individual. With that said, I’d suggest you go check it out—go into it with an open mind and determine for yourself whether it is a film worth watching.