A potentially clever idea becomes a pretentious trip into the director's own obsessions.
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12/08/09
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The Box (2009)
45
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Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:123
Fresh:55
Rotten:68
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: $114,882,598
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
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
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
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
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
Kelly, king of dumbed-down nihilism, takes a short Twilight Zone TV episode, “Button, Button,” and extends it unendurably...
11/18/09
Has stylish production values and a somewhat creepy performance by the talented Frank Langella, but it's often too lazily constructed, unimaginative and lacking much-needed suspense.
11/07/09
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
Have you ever actually tried watching paint dry? A sloth walk? Grass grow? You can have all the thrills with none of the chills courtesy of The Box, the painfully sluggish new sci-fi morality play from Donnie Darko creator Richard Kelly.
11/05/09
Outlandish embellishments serve as annoying distractions to a perfectly good premise in this disappointing thriller.
11/18/09
Somebody get Richard Kelly a Katherine Heigl romantic comedy stat, or else we might have yet another talented filmmaker unable to wiggle free from his own cavernous pretension.
11/06/09
The thriller fluctuates wildly in tone and levels of exposition, featuring some effective concepts and scenes, but just as many moments that are poorly constructed or unnecessary.
11/06/09
This box needed a STOP button.
12/02/09
Think 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
First-semester social-science students would wince at the overreaching metaphors in Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly’s latest Rorschach test.
11/12/09
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
Riffing on a Twilight Zone-themed morality tale, writer/director Richard Kelly ("Donnie Darko") sets the table for a three-course meal of supernatural events but serves up an anemic narrative entree instead.
11/11/09
The acting is stiff, the special effects look cheap and the dialogue is unintentionally funny.
12/11/09
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
What button, on whose box, did Kelly push to get the money to make this awful, preposterous thriller?
11/04/09
Top CriticLatest 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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