It has been interesting to see how quickly Netflix's Bird Box has been taken up by the masses, with everyone on social networks talking about how great it is and sharing memes about it. Much in the fashion of 13 Reasons Why, it has garnered a lot of unfettered support and praise, so I thought I should check it out.
My first thoughts were that of confusion. Bird Box is effectively a rehash of the failed Mark Wahlberg film The Happening, combined with an adaptation of the premise of A Quiet Place. It's odd because if they hadn't explained that the plants were the cause in The Happening, it's exactly the same film (minus the blindfolds), yet The Happening was widely panned and was a box office flop. Perhaps A Quiet Place has brought this style of dramatic thrillers into mainstream focus and therefore helped with Bird Box's popularity.
Either way, this is a post-apocalyptic film where the world is beset by something that causes you to kill yourself if you see it, thus the survivors must navigate the world with blindfolds on. A simple premise that is rather intriguing, but that's as far as the premise is taken. No real explanation for it; are the threats from fantasy? science fiction? spiritual? religious? Nothing is explained.
My first thoughts were that of confusion. Bird Box is effectively a rehash of the failed Mark Wahlberg film The Happening, combined with an adaptation of the premise of A Quiet Place. It's odd because if they hadn't explained that the plants were the cause in The Happening, it's exactly the same film (minus the blindfolds), yet The Happening was widely panned and was a box office flop. Perhaps A Quiet Place has brought this style of dramatic thrillers into mainstream focus and therefore helped with Bird Box's popularity.
Either way, this is a post-apocalyptic film where the world is beset by something that causes you to kill yourself if you see it, thus the survivors must navigate the world with blindfolds on. A simple premise that is rather intriguing, but that's as far as the premise is taken. No real explanation for it; are the threats from fantasy? science fiction? spiritual? religious? Nothing is explained.
There are some huge names in the cast, from Sandra Bullock and Sarah Paulson to John Malkovich and Machine Gun Kelly. Yet it seems like the star power was used as a distraction from the plot, as the characters were horrendously written. All very much one-dimensional characters, who act without reasoning.
The imagery portrayed by the performances was also rather disturbing. On so many occasions is there actual chemistry between characters which is then compared to a sibling relationship. Implicitly comparing brother and sister, to lovers. Perhaps it was an accidental result of the frequent camera angle changes that creates associations between things that actually have no association.
It all reeks of poor direction. Just because it is a thriller, it doesn't mean you need to have constant camera angle changes. It may make it look like things are moving quickly, but it just makes things harder to watch and kills a lot of potential tension. Long shots are brilliant at creating suspense, but there is very little of it in Bird Box.
Another issue is the split timeline. Starting your film just before the climax, and then jumping back and forwards from five years ago to "current" time serves as its own spoiler. If there is a large group of people five years ago, yet at the start of the film we were shown three, then the rest of the cast is suddenly expendable. Perhaps this is why their characters were poorly developed, but it certainly removed a lot of the potential surprises. Especially when you look at the children's role in the film. You won't be properly engaged in a dangerous scene when you already know who survives (an issue that SOLO: A Star Wars Story also suffered from). The only upside that the switching provides is allowing comparison's between the hostility between Sandra Bullock's character with that of Olivia, and seeing that direct translation to another character in the future scene.
Trying to remove the one aspect that reduced the fear levels of A Quiet Place, Bird Box never shows the threat. While that works well to keep the tension and suspense, they also fail to explain the limitations of the threat. The differences between sight via cameras or blindfold are never explained, or whether the threats are physical entities, as they are certainly seen physically interacting with things in the final act. Despite following the story for five years, we learn nothing about the threat.
Even the ending fails to deliver the emotional climax we were waiting for when previous locations felt far safer by comparison.
It is not a bad film by any means. I watched the whole thing in one viewing. But it certainly has its fair share of flaws. With a more linear story layout, and taking the time to follow other characters (not just Sandra Bullock) we would have been far more invested in the film.
The imagery portrayed by the performances was also rather disturbing. On so many occasions is there actual chemistry between characters which is then compared to a sibling relationship. Implicitly comparing brother and sister, to lovers. Perhaps it was an accidental result of the frequent camera angle changes that creates associations between things that actually have no association.
It all reeks of poor direction. Just because it is a thriller, it doesn't mean you need to have constant camera angle changes. It may make it look like things are moving quickly, but it just makes things harder to watch and kills a lot of potential tension. Long shots are brilliant at creating suspense, but there is very little of it in Bird Box.
Another issue is the split timeline. Starting your film just before the climax, and then jumping back and forwards from five years ago to "current" time serves as its own spoiler. If there is a large group of people five years ago, yet at the start of the film we were shown three, then the rest of the cast is suddenly expendable. Perhaps this is why their characters were poorly developed, but it certainly removed a lot of the potential surprises. Especially when you look at the children's role in the film. You won't be properly engaged in a dangerous scene when you already know who survives (an issue that SOLO: A Star Wars Story also suffered from). The only upside that the switching provides is allowing comparison's between the hostility between Sandra Bullock's character with that of Olivia, and seeing that direct translation to another character in the future scene.
Trying to remove the one aspect that reduced the fear levels of A Quiet Place, Bird Box never shows the threat. While that works well to keep the tension and suspense, they also fail to explain the limitations of the threat. The differences between sight via cameras or blindfold are never explained, or whether the threats are physical entities, as they are certainly seen physically interacting with things in the final act. Despite following the story for five years, we learn nothing about the threat.
Even the ending fails to deliver the emotional climax we were waiting for when previous locations felt far safer by comparison.
It is not a bad film by any means. I watched the whole thing in one viewing. But it certainly has its fair share of flaws. With a more linear story layout, and taking the time to follow other characters (not just Sandra Bullock) we would have been far more invested in the film.