The acting by Cameron Diaz and James Marsden was the only thing that saved “The Box” from being a complete film failure.
It’s a question of human nature that director Richard Kelly attempts to answer in “The Box.”
The question alone draws audience members into the movie, but, unfortunately, Kelly doesn’t know how to keep us there. His film, which stars Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, is about an average couple trying to make ends meet when they are approached by a mysterious disfigured man with an interesting proposition: push the button on a small box they’ve been given and in turn receive a million dollars.
The catch is it’ll take another person’s life.
The concept seems interesting at first, but Kelly’s attempt to put so many different themes and symbols into one film causes it to be disorganized, boring, and predictable.
One would think that the director of the classic film Donnie Darko would be able to bring a twisted sensation to the big screen again, but it must not be in him anymore.
Before I begin to list my disappoints, I will say that out of all the things wrong with this film, the acting was not one of them. Diaz and Marsden complimented each other well, and were able to feed off each other to create a natural connection. There were only two or three scenes where I felt the two could have toned it down a bit.
The actors deserve credit for working with a script that lacked any depth. In fact, watching the movie as a whole could make you feel as if the writer doubts the audience’s own ability to draw conclusions on their own. Everything is revealed in one way or another, so there are no real surprises which could have actually added to the blandness. The reason anyone would get into this movie is stripped away!
The only thing that I couldn’t figure out 30 minutes before it happened was the final options that were granted to the couple near the end, and the unveiling of that was a bit disappointing.
The movie was two hours long, but it felt like I had been sitting forever due to how slow the movie played out. While physical action is not always necessary to help move a film along, it could have used some in this case.
In a film like Donnie Darko, where the main character is a disturbed, complex persona, embedding numerous symbols and themes and focusing on dialogue is appropriate, but doing so in “The Box” just made the film feel longer than it really is; it distracts the audience from what is going on in the movie.
I was so fixated on trying to figure out certain representations that, at one point, I stopped paying attention to what was happening in one of the most important scenes! Plus, because the ideas and themes are not well established, audience members will find themselves deeply confused by the constant ideas free-floating through the film. Kelly had way too many things going on at once, and if he could have just removed a few symbols and themes, it would have balanced out better.
This science fiction thriller (if that’s what you want to call it) just didn’t hit the spot. There was no real depth or organization, it was drawn out and long, and if one does not pay attention to every little thing going on, you will get lost. There was a point where I was so fed up with the lack of entertainment that I wanted to get up to leave the film without finishing it.
Richard Kelly did not provide the world with his finest in this film. He tried to resurrect “Donnie Darko” from a different angle, and it just didn’t work.
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