Movie Marmite. Many will be perplexed. Donnie Darko fans should lap it up.
Comment
12/04/09
The Box (2009)
45
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:117
Fresh:53
Rotten:64
Average Rating:5.1/10
Consensus: Imaginative but often preposterous, The Box features some thrills but largely feels too piecemeal.
Rated: 12A [See Full Rating]
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:04-12-2009
Synopsis: What if someone gave you a box containing a button that, if pushed, would bring you a million dollars…but simultaneously take the life of someone you don’t know? Would you do it? And what would... [More]
Starring: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, James Rebhorn
Director: Richard Kelly
Reviews for The Box
Top CriticWhile it’s true that the film’s sci-fi antics are far from watertight in the logic department, there’s enough eccentricity and ambition at play to charm and bemuse in equal measure.
12/04/09
Top CriticThink very carefully before you attempt to unlock the mysteries of The Box. There is no going back, you cannot undo your decision, you will never get back those 115 minutes, and by the horrifying end, those same 115 minutes will feel like a life sentence.
12/04/09
Top CriticThe clueless and overreaching ambition which has started to characterise [Richard Kelly's] cinematic failures comes into play again.
12/04/09
Top CriticThis film just goes interminably on and on, like some pop video to a prog rock track from hell, padding things out to feature length with all sorts of incredible gibberish and extraneous nonsense.
12/04/09
Top CriticKelly’s obsessions are not entirely like anyone else’s, which is a recommendation of sorts, and he shoots more beautifully than ever, which is another. I won’t give up on him when his films are still this richly textured and high on their own ideas.
12/04/09
Top CriticSinister, tense and at times ridiculous, The Box is a warped genre piece – Kelly’s homage to 1970s science-fiction, with all the wobbly effects, timid housewives and pseudo-religious imagery that suggests.
12/04/09
A certain faecal word certainly sums up the artistic merits of The Box, a tedious and often excruciating production from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly.
12/04/09
So shudder to think what [Matheson would] make of this dogs' dinner of an adaptation by Richard Kelly, a shambles rivalled only by the writer-director's own Southland Tales.
12/04/09
Richard Kelly returns with a tense, unnerving and jumpy thriller. It loses focus towards the end, but Donnie Darko has just entered The Twilight Zone.
12/04/09
This cosmic joke isn't as bad as Kelly's previous picture, Southland Tales, but it's still a total mess, even if it is a stylish looking one.
12/04/09
People start wandering about in a zomboid fashion but no one notices. The acting deteriorates into overwrought melodramatics. The plot gets sillier and sillier, and makes less and less sense. The Box should be taken away in one, and speedily buried.
12/04/09
Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko made him famous, but to judge by this unhappy mess he's having trouble confirming his talent.
12/04/09
The Box is based on a 10-page short story and, while it was successfully adapted for a one-hour episode of The Twilight Zone, there's not enough for a feature, let alone one lasting two-hours.
12/04/09
A shame, then, that a film that starts with asking such a definite question, to push the button or not, should end so vaguely that it fails to push ours.
12/04/09
A lot of stuff about Nasa, Mars exploration and amateur theatre – Sartre’s Huis Clos and its glowing chestnut adages (“Hell is other people”) – add to the film’s richness or, depending on opinion, its overcooked confusion.
12/04/09
The single question I wanted to ask was: how many more times will a studio allow Richard Kelly to commit career suicide?
12/04/09
The 1976 setting is nicely evoked in some hideously familiar wallpaper, fashion choices and facial hair but the film never feels more than a convoluted shaggy dog story stretched out over a very long two hours.
12/04/09
Kelly maintains a suitably creepy atmosphere throughout and the frequently twisty plot is both intriguing and unpredictable, at least in the first half.
12/04/09
While it's fascinating and twisty, with a wonderfully creepy atmosphere, it's also pretentious and overwrought.
12/04/09
Latest News for The Box
November 05, 2009:
Critics Consensus: A Christmas Carol Dazzles But Disappoints
This week at the movies, we've got some modern-day Dickens (Disney's A Christmas Carol, starring Jim Carrey and Gary Oldman); a button-pushing thriller (The Box, starring... More...
November 03, 2009:
Richard Kelly Talks The Box 
It's been a long and somewhat bumpy ride getting "The Box" to theaters, but director Richard Kelly is finally on the verge of releasing his latest film. He talks about the... More...
October 29, 2009:
Richard Kelly chats about The Box
Richard Kelly's no stranger to the mysterious whims of fate. His first feature, Donnie Darko, flopped upon initial release, only to live on as one of the decade's most beloved... More...
September 28, 2009:
New: Brand New Movie Trailer/Poster
More...
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