RottenTomatoes.com
Log In | Register | What is RT?
Check out the new RT Community
  • Home
  • Movies
  • DVD
  • Celebrities
  • News
  • Critics
  • Trailers & Pictures
  • CommunityBeta
  • Box Office
  • | In Theaters
  • | Opening
  • | Upcoming
  • | Best Of
  • | Certified Fresh
RT Search Powered by Google
help icon Enhanced RT
searches on Google
Click here to turn on enhanced search results from RT on your Google searches.
 
Movies / Upcoming / The Box
The Box

Rate this Movie Help Icon

  • Write a Review
  • Read Reviews
  • Add to List
  • Buy Poster External Icon
Bookmark and Share

The Box (2009)

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
44 %
Tomatometer
Template ImageTemplate Image

How does the Tomatometer work Help Icon

Reviews Counted:130

Fresh:57

Rotten:73

Average Rating:5/10

Consensus: Imaginative but often preposterous, The Box features some thrills but largely feels too piecemeal.

Runtime: 1 hr 56 mins

Genre: Horror/Suspense

US Box Office: $14,961,931

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... 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 be the consequences? The year is 1976. Norma Lewis is a teacher at a private high school and her husband, Arthur, is an engineer working at NASA. They are, by all accounts, an average couple living a normal life in the suburbs with their young son…until a mysterious man with a horribly disfigured face appears on their doorstep and presents Norma with a life-altering proposition: the box. With only 24 hours to make their choice, Norma and Arthur face an impossible moral dilemma. What they don’t realize is that no matter what they decide, terrifying consequences will have already been set in motion. They soon discover that the ramifications of this decision are beyond their control and extend far beyond their own fortune and fate. --© Warner Bros [More]

Starring: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, James Rebhorn

Starring: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, James Rebhorn, Holmes Osborne

Director: Richard Kelly

Director: Richard Kelly
Screenwriter: Richard Kelly
Producer: Sean McKittrick, Richard Kelly, Dan Lin
Composer: Win Butler, Regine Chassagne, Owen Pallett
Studio: Warner Bros.

[See More Credits]

  • Trailers
  • Pictures
  • Trailer
    >
    Are You Going to Make the Offer to Someone Else?
    >
    Who Pushed the Button?
    >
    We Don't Want Anyone to Get Hurt
    >
  • What Are We Going to Do?
    >
    Trailer
    >
    Push the Button
    >
1 - 4 of 7

See More Movie Trailers & Pictures

Reviews for The Box

  • T-Meter Critics
  • Top Critics
  • RT Community
  • My Critics
  • My Friends
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >> >|
Arrange By:Fresh | Rotten | Comments | Name | Source | Date
 
 

Kelly's most accessible ambiguous odyssey to date, The Box dares you to open it up again and again.

Full Review Source: Sunday Mail (Australia) | comment Comment
11/01/09
Ben McEachen
Ben McEachen
Sunday Mail (Australia)
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Regrettably, and despite a lot of effects -- including those watery tentacles he seems so fond of -- Kelly delivers a Big Reveal that is, frankly, boring.

Full Review Source: The Age (Australia) | comment Comment
10/28/09
Jim Schembri
Jim Schembri
The Age (Australia)
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The movie gives the impression of being pasted together from many different parts rather than presented as a cohesive whole.

Full Review Source: Courier Mail (Australia) | comment Comment
10/28/09
Des Partridge
Des Partridge
Courier Mail (Australia)
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The 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.

Full Review Source: At the Movies (Australia) | comment Comment
10/28/09
David Stratton
David Stratton
At the Movies (Australia)
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Like 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.

Full Review Source: Daily Telegraph (Australia) | comment Comment
10/28/09
Vicky Roach
Vicky Roach
Daily Telegraph (Australia)
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Certain parts of it are maddeningly inspired. The sum of all its parts will just make you mad.

Full Review Source: Herald Sun (Australia) | comment Comment
10/28/09
Leigh Paatsch
Leigh Paatsch
Herald Sun (Australia)
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Although 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.

Full Review Source: FILMINK (Australia) | comment Comment
10/27/09
Julian Shaw
Julian Shaw
FILMINK (Australia)
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

A 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.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine Australasia | comment Comment
10/27/09
Luke Goodsell
Luke Goodsell
Empire Magazine Australasia
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

It 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.

Full Review Source: IGN Movies AU | comment 6 Comments
10/21/09
Patrick Kolan
Patrick Kolan
IGN Movies AU
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Kelly stretches a perfectly good 22-minute television episode out to two hours with an insane barrage of red herrings and metaphysical sci-fi mumbo-jumbo

Full Review Source: Philadelphia Weekly | comment Comment
03/19/10
Sean Burns
Sean Burns
Philadelphia Weekly

It is a film that wants to be profound but it ends up feeling more like a lesser episode of The X Files.

Full Review Source: Cinema Autopsy | comment Comment
03/18/10
Thomas Caldwell
Thomas Caldwell
Cinema Autopsy
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

[Director Kelly] ventures boldly into the ludicrous, and comes out the other side with an even more sinister conclusion.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
03/12/10
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

All moral conflicts and creepy allusions are lost in a barrage of ridiculous plot devices, and a story that makes absolutely no sense...

Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | comment Comment
02/25/10
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Felix Vasquez Jr.
Cinema Crazed

For those willing to follow Kelly down all the rabbit holes his warped imagination contrives, there are small treasures to be found here and there.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Examiner | comment Comment
02/15/10
Rossiter Drake
Rossiter Drake
San Francisco Examiner

...promises more than it delivers, ultimately providing a muddled narrative that does nothing to convince us of its moral positions.

Full Review Source: DVDTown.com | comment 1 Comment
02/13/10
John J. Puccio
John J. Puccio
DVDTown.com

What is supposed to suggest a state of discomfort and unease feels more disjointed and frustrating than anything, and what's meant to be menacing soon turns laughable.

Full Review Source: Cinematical | comment 1 Comment
12/17/09
William Goss
William Goss
Cinematical

The acting is stiff, the special effects look cheap and the dialogue is unintentionally funny.

Full Review Source: Sunday Times (UK) | comment Comment
12/11/09
Cosmo Landesman
Cosmo Landesman
Sunday Times (UK)

For the first half-hour the movie is engagingly mystifying in a David Lynch vein. Subsequently it modulates into a piece of didactic transcendental science-fiction in the manner of The Day the Earth Stood Still and Close Encounters.

Full Review Source: Observer [UK] | comment Comment
12/11/09
Philip French
Philip French
Observer [UK]

The Box is by no means as indigestible as Southland Tales, and there's as much to relish as there is to groan at.

Full Review Source: Independent on Sunday | comment Comment
12/11/09
Nicholas Barber
Nicholas Barber
Independent on Sunday

The most disturbing thing here is the yellow, oval-patterned 1970s wallpaper

Full Review Source: CinePassion | comment 4 Comments
12/08/09
Fernando F. Croce
Fernando F. Croce
CinePassion
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >> >|
all

Latest News for The Box

February 25, 2010: Win Copies of Richard Kelly's The Box
We're giving away DVD copies of 'The Box', the latest sci-fi thriller from 'Donnie Darko' director Richard Kelly, More...

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 Opens in new window
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...

See All

More Movies

Coming Soon in Australia
Tomatometer Percentage Movie Date

11% 11% The Spy Next Door 25/3
100% 100% How to Train Your Dragon 25/3
82% 82% The Girl with the Drag… 25/3

What’s Hot On RT

RT on Facebook

RT on Facebook

Become a fan for all the latest RT goodies!

Predators

Predators

It must be said: Get to the trailer NOW!!!

Friday Harvest

Friday Harvest

Find this week's best trailers and pictures!

Premiere Pictures

Premiere Pictures

Pics from The Bounty Hunter red carpet!

Other News

  • Top Stories
  • Popular
  • Interviews
 
 

Comments

 
 
Top Stories
Headlines Comments
  
  • Bryan Singer Talks X-Men: First Class Source: Los Angeles Times
24
  • Columbia Trying to Make Ghostbusters III Without Reitman? Source: New York Magazine
38
  • Tim Burton Adopts The Addams Family Source: Deadline Hollywood Daily
28
  • Here Comes the Avatar Double Dip Source: Los Angeles Times
42
  • The Hobbit's Quest Starts in June Source: ComingSoon.net
17
  • Summit Wants a Top Director for Breaking Dawn Source: Entertainment Weekly
40
  • Tron Legacy Set Reports and Interviews! Source: Collider.com
22
  • Ryan Phillippe, Captain America Contender? Source: HitFix
78
  • Predators Sneak Peek Posted Source: 20th Century Fox
20
  • Weekly Ketchup: Captain America vs. Agent Smith
150
Popular
Headlines Comments
  
  • Total Recall: Jennifer Aniston's Best Movies
111
  • Tomatometer Watch: Critics Love Kick-Ass!
48
  • Box Office Guru Wrapup: Audiences Still Love Alice
41
  • Weekly Ketchup: More Captain America and Tim Burton's latest
39
  • Friday Harvest: Predators trailer, The Expendables, and more!
30
  • Critics Consensus: Wimpy Kid Gets Picked On
28
Interviews
Headlines Comments
  
  • Exclusive: Oscar Nominee Jeff Bridges on Crazy Heart - The RT Interview
1
  • Exclusive: Oscar Nominee Colin Firth on A Single Man
10
  • Oscar Nominee Gabby Sidibe Talks Precious
23
  • One Man's Quest To Find The Worst Movie Ever
9
  • Five Favorite Films With Peter Jackson
78
  • Robert Downey Jr. talks Sherlock Holmes & Iron Man 2 - RT Interview
23
  • Director Ruben Fleischer Talks Zombieland
4
  • "I Don't Hate Women": Lars von Trier on Antichrist
19
  • Eric Bana talks Love the Beast - RT Interview
14
  • Fight Club Sound Designer Reflects on Film's 10th Anniversary
25
 
 

Sponsored Links

Around The Network

  • The Box at Rotten Tomatoes
  • The Box at IGN

Fresh Links

Featured
No Sleep Til Brooklyn
No Sleep Til Brooklyn External Link

Moviefone gives us a list of some of the best films set in the coolest borough of New York.

Glee + American Idol = Win?
Glee + American Idol = Win? External Link

JustJared reports on a couple of Glee cast members showing their support at the AI Top 12 party, with pics!

Competitions
Become an RT Facebook Fan!
Become an RT Facebook Fan! External Link

Follow along with all of our exclusive features, trailer updates, and industry news, directly on Facebook!

 
 
About| Site Map| Help| RT To Go| Contact Us| Press| Critics Submission| Linking to RT| Licensing| Movie List| Celebs List| Newsletter
Copyright © 2010 Flixster, Inc. All rights reserved. | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy
Certain product data © 1995-present Muze, Inc. For personal use only. All rights reserved.