Movie Review: ‘Bird Box’

Courtesy+ABC+News

Courtesy ABC News

 

Originally published January 6, 2019.

 

There have been a lot of movies that would make you go WTF? Bird Box is one of those movies that would have you saying it for all the wrong reasons. There have been a lot of overhyped movies for 2018, but Bird Box is an overhyped knockoff version of the 2008 phycological thriller “The Happening” which is unfortunate because that movie sucked too and we the public didn’t ask for an equally horrible remade version with birds.

 

Just for a quick gist of the movie, Malorie (Sandra Bullock) is a pessimistic, emotionally deprived pregnant woman who doesn’t really want her baby and stays inside most of the time. Her sister, Jess (Sarah Paulson), tries to convince her that having a baby will help her become a more loving person and tells her she needs to check on the baby she wishes would go away.

 

While leaving her doctor’s appointment, they find that the weird phycological force that causes people to see things and hear voices which in turn causes them to commit suicide that has been terrorizing Europe has now made its way to America when they see a woman banging her head against glass with a weird look in her eyes.

 

When they get to the car, the noises around them increase and Jess sees something that causes her to crash the car. They both survive the crash, but Jess gets out of the car and purposefully gets hit by a truck. Malorie tries to run but is too distraught by her sister’s death. Two civilians, Lucy (Rosa Salazar) and Tom (Trevante Rhodes) run over to help her and get themselves in the house.

 

Upon entering the house, they come across more civilians in the house. To make a long story short, most of the end up dying except Tom and Malorie. They are left with two kids who are named Boy and Girl. Fast-forwarding five years later Malorie and Tom make contact with a community far away but they must use the river to get there. Tom dies when they are hunted by gun toting zombies who want them to embrace the phycological force. Tom manages to kill them all, but the force overcomes him, and he shoots himself.

 

Malorie take the journey with Boy and Girl to the community. It wasn’t an easy, but they made it to the community, which is a school for the blind, where Malorie finally names Boy and Girl, Tom and Olympia. And, that’s the end.

 

Honestly, the reviews on this movie were mainly positive, so I thought it would be a good movie, but I found myself constantly trying to stay interested in the story. For a positive aspect, the movie was beautiful to look at. The scenery was amazing, and the characters were portrayed well, too bad the story as a whole was a tragedy. The rising action, climax, and falling action were hard to differentiate. I thought once Gary died, the movie would be close to over but, when I paused to see the time and it was over an hour and fifteen minutes left, I was pissed.

 

It was a whole lot of filler scenes for a story with no clear plot or reasoning for the force causing people to kill themselves. Sandra, Trevante, John Malkovich, and Lil Rel made the movie watchable. Everyone else was an afterthought.

 

The story was flawed and so was the way it was told. The movie would have been far more successful if it kept a consistent order instead of jumping back and forth. It just made the movie more confusing. I was okay with the opening scene being a foreshadow and then it goes back to a flashback, that was promising.

 

I just didn’t think my interest in the movie would be over 20 minutes into it. Also, those birds. I thought they would play a more important role considering the film was named after them. Sandra threw them in a box and I’m surprised they survived considering the boat turned over in the river. They were cute to look at and that is exactly where it ended. The birds were so unnecessarily put in the story when they really weren’t even needed. She really put birds in a box and didn’t even use them.

 

This movie is the epidemy of something that probably would have been more interesting if it were a book rather than a movie.

 

So, in conclusion, the only time you should watch this movie is on accident and when you have absolutely nothing to do.