Bird Box

2018 thing

Rating: 8/20

Plot: Some people try to survive an attack of something.

This movie feels like it might have started out as a fable but everybody lost interest in that idea or forgot what it was about and decided to do something else instead. It really seems like it should be about something, but I'm having difficulty discovering a subtext, and the more I think about the whole thing, the dumber both the movie and I seem. I read an argument that claimed this was all about white people refusing to see racism in the world, but that seems unlikely, and it's entirely possible that the article was satirical anyway.

Here it is, so you can judge for yourself: https://www.theroot.com/netflixs-bird-box-is-really-about-how-white-people-dont-1831345159

I saw a more convincing argument that this was about social media (https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/bird-box-is-the-first-great-monster-movie-about-this-po-1831318490), and I can almost buy that although that would be a really juvenile way of delivering a message.

Instead, they just seem interested in setting up this mystery, never really explaining the mystery, and thrilling us with Happening-esque scenes where people are compelled to commit suicide with sketchy special effects. Trevonte Rhodes is the only exception in a cast that is terrible from top to bottom, maybe surprising considering that cast has both America's sweetheart Sandra Bullock and America's other sweetheart John Malkovich. You never really care about any of these characters, and the movie doesn't seem to care about them either. In fact, two of the characters just sort of run off, and there's no resolution at all to their particular story. It's just another non-sequitur in a movie filled with all these unexplained little puzzles that aren't anything anybody would care about solving anyway.

If I watch this again, it will only be in an attempt to figure out if it's a real movie or a practical joke.