Kelly's most accessible ambiguous odyssey to date, The Box dares you to open it up again and again.
Comment
11/01/09
The Box (2009)
47
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:90
Fresh:42
Rotten:48
Average Rating:5.3/10
Consensus: Imaginative but often preposterous, The Box features some thrills but largely feels too piecemeal.
Genre: Horror/Suspense
US Box Office: $14,503,106
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 CriticRegrettably, and despite a lot of effects -- including those watery tentacles he seems so fond of -- Kelly delivers a Big Reveal that is, frankly, boring.
10/28/09
Top CriticThe movie gives the impression of being pasted together from many different parts rather than presented as a cohesive whole.
10/28/09
Top CriticThe interesting thing about Richard Kelly's films is that in none of them do you know exactly what's happening, and it does not really matter, because there is such a wealth of imagination there. I found it very impressive.
10/28/09
Top CriticLike Donnie Darko, The Box's eerily effective atmosphere of paranoid conspiracy would not hold up to too much scrutiny. Fans of that twisted sci-fi conundrum will need no further encouragement to see this follow-up in the same vein.
10/28/09
Top CriticCertain parts of it are maddeningly inspired. The sum of all its parts will just make you mad.
10/28/09
Top CriticAlthough an improvement on Southland Tales, Richard 'Donnie Darko' Kelly's cryptic moody thriller has a far-fetched premise that is not helped by a script filled with holes.
10/27/09
Top CriticA moody antidote to the freakshow of Southland Tales, The Box feels like Richard Kelly’s spiritual sequel to Donnie Darko -- foreboding and off-kilter, it’s a late-night riff on ’70s sci-fi that confirms the director as an original.
10/27/09
Top CriticIt may fall short of Donnie Darko's clever storytelling, but for his third feature film, Kelly plays confidently with suspense and lays down the right hooks at the right time to keep you drawn into his creepy world.
10/21/09
Top Criticall at once an engrossing genre piece, an exceptional exercise in expansive adaptation, and a complex moral allegory, so that this is a Box that requires a lot of unpacking - which of course makes it the gift that keeps on giving...
11/23/09
Outlandish embellishments serve as annoying distractions to a perfectly good premise in this disappointing thriller.
11/18/09
A box full of boredom.
11/18/09
Kelly, king of dumbed-down nihilism, takes a short Twilight Zone TV episode, “Button, Button,” and extends it unendurably...
11/18/09
The choice is yours, but I suggest you push that button for your ticket and see The Box in theaters.
11/17/09
A cool, philosophical mindfreak.
11/16/09
This hokum might have been entertaining if Kelly could have somehow made this "Twilight Zone" material more credible.
11/16/09
The first half is a brilliantly realized exercise in sustained tension; the suspense fades as the story becomes increasingly bizarre...
11/13/09
A Richard Matheson story is a good place to start, but boy did this screenplay lose direction. By the third act, a good story becomes totally laughable, including nose-bleeding zombies. Paul Chambers, CNN.
11/13/09
One of those thrillers that, looking back on it, has some plot ribbons with frayed, fuzzy ends. Just not quite sharp-edged enough to open doors to images and fears in your head you never knew were there, but now want desperately to lock up.
11/13/09
Both its imagination and its ambition sprint far beyond anything offered in the creatively neutered likes of Disney's A Christmas Carol or Law Abiding Citizen.
11/13/09
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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