I think that Richard Kelly, from one film to the next, has gone in some very interesting and sometimes puzzling directions.
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11/09/09
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The Box (2009)
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Reviews Counted:124
Fresh:55
Rotten:69
Average Rating:5/10
Consensus: Imaginative but often preposterous, The Box features some thrills but largely feels too piecemeal.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating]
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Theatrical Release:Nov 6, 2009 Wide
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... [More]
Starring: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, James Rebhorn
Director: Richard Kelly
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Reviews for The Box
Top CriticA heartfelt, brain-bending mystery just slippery enough for answers to remain tantalisingly out of reach.
12/04/09
all 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
Kelly's most accessible ambiguous odyssey to date, The Box dares you to open it up again and again.
11/01/09
The Box is a dreary and engaging brain trip into the world of Richard Kelly. This is where he's comfortable, this is where he succeeds and this is where he triumphs.
11/05/09
The Box...breezes right past slick, pre-packed sci-fi to find a resting place somewhere in the outlandish and exceedingly eccentric world of artists so true to themselves that their work inspires and infuriates in equal measure.
11/06/09
A confounding sci-fi mystery on one level and a tortured existential treatise on the other, pondering the nature of man in relation to God.
11/06/09
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
as it was with Kelly's last film, the widely despised, decade-defining Southland Tales, The Box never allows you to get your hands completely around it
11/05/09
"Much weirder and more serious than it appears to be in the ads."
11/05/09
Anyone going into "The Box" expecting a simple everyday thriller surely will be surprised with what they get--a dismal, morally complicated piece of sci-fi surrealism.
11/08/09
A sequence shot in the Boston Public Library (even though the film is set in Virginia) is creepier than anything in the splatterporn movies that pass for horror these days.
11/06/09
Kelly, as he did in Donnie Darko, avoids obvious scare techniques. Instead, he makes the bizarre, the surreal, and the frightening emerge from normal reality.
11/09/09
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
...writer/director Richard Kelly effectively evokes the feel of a '70s paranoia thriller by stressing images and sequences of an increasingly unsettling nature.
11/29/09
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.
10/28/09
Steven Poster's chilly photography, the Bernard Hermann-esque score by the Arcade Fire, the quiet malice of Frank Langella... knowing that these things lie within 'The Box,' why wouldn't you take a chance and open it?
11/05/09
Even with its occasional lapses into random weirdness, it remains watchable and engaging, often suspenseful, even creepy.
11/07/09
Some of Kelly's ambition is folly, but when he fails, he fails big. This is one of my favorite films of the year.
11/06/09
An ethically rich drama about the mystery of not knowing, greed, responsibility, free will, and altruism.
11/06/09
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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