Last week I had the chance to watch the new Netflix Original film, Bird Box, Directed by Susanne Bier. Bird Box is an ordinary post apocalyptic survival film where scary monsters make people see their biggest fear and kill themselves. Other than that, viewers aren’t given any more information on the monsters. Clearly, lots of confusion is derived from the lack of context about the main abnormalities of the film. Unfortunately, Bird Box lacks originality when it comes to its storyline. Bier had created what can be perceived as a wannabe version of John Krasinski's “A Quiet Place”; instead of not being able to make an sound, the characters need to keep their blindfolds on so they can’t see. The similarities between the two films made Bird Box that much more predictable and therefore it became less of the “Thriller” it was meant to be. Sandra Bullock, the main protagonist in the film, shows little to no development as a character as the story progressed. She managed to remain arrogant and moody throughout the entirety of the film up until the end of the film when she manages to show a sliver of emotion that isn’t pure anger and negativity. As for the film’s plot, throughout the duration of the movie there is a 5 year time jump. This time jump is followed by quite literally no explanation as to what had happened in the past 5 years or how they got to where they are now. Because it was only a two hour movie, most of the characters the story begins with die off early on, which led to weak character development and no real viewer-character relationships.
Personally I believe Bird Box was a great film but it really fell short in a lot of aspects. Firstly, I wasn’t fond of seeing the rapper Machine Gun Kelly (the Walmart version of Eminem). He certainly shouldn’t pursue an acting career because I can assure you it wouldn’t pan out too well. Mainly because his part was a carbon copy of his regular arrogant self. As for the plot, as I mentioned earlier, Bullock is a Scrooge up until the final 30 seconds when she bridges out of her comfort zone to give her children real names (wow!). It was also disappointing that there wasn’t more explanation of the origins of the monsters they spend the entire movie running from; that lack of necessary context made the film a lot more confusing and unenjoyable in my eyes. On the other hand, I did like that there were certain people who could see the monsters and remain unphased. It was nice to see that the film had something original it had to offer. Chiefly, the film was fun and intense but could’ve done a much better job with giving viewers extra details and information on what exactly was going on.
Lots of great evaluative tone in this, Jack. You examine acting, plot, and a range of other content-based choices of the film. Love the context, too, by bringing in "A Quiet Place," and you even use that as an opportunity to evaluate (by showing how Krasinski's film is better). Your organization is a bit confusing, because it almost seems as if you're stuck in the 1 objective 1 subjective organization from MP1. Use multiple paragraphs when writing reviews to provide specific & purposeful paragraphs.
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