Movie Review - Bird Box

MegaSoulhero Bird Box is a Netflix original movie. I watched it in a car on the way to Las Vegas. I was not planning on watching this film, but I got curious after hearing so many people talk about it. So I watched it and I have some thoughts.

There’s basically these invisible monsters that are causing people to die if they look at them. So their way of surviving is by keeping the windows and doors shut and wearing blindfolds while outside. To get positives out of the way, I thought Sandra Bullock gave a pretty good performance. It’s easy to see the fear in her due to the events that are happening around her. Even the kids she travels with give great performances. Fun fact: I had a conversation with my mom about child actors. She watched my review of Mary Poppins Returns on YouTube and said I was too hard on the kids in that movie. I told her that being a child isn’t an excuse for bad acting because there are movies out there with great child actors. The kids in this movie are examples of great child actors. This, however, did not save the movie. I nearly fell asleep while watching it. It was so boring. The whole concept is basically A Quiet Place except instead of having to remain quiet, they have to keep their eyes closed. A Quiet Place was much better because the characters, for the most part, likeable to the point where we are on the edge of our seats and we want them to make it out alive. In Bird Box, however, they are all so unlikeable and annoying. I found it hard to relate to any of them. They don’t even go through any kind of development. It doesn’t feel like anything is at stake. Especially since they make some really dumb decisions.

It also doesn’t help that we can’t see these monsters that they are dealing with. It’s also never explained how these monsters are causing people to die or how some people are unaffected by them. We are given no details about them at all. All the movie wants us to know is that they are monsters and we they are causing people to die. That’s it. Well actually, they do show us that even looking at them through cameras won’t help. That’s something I’m glad they pointed out. One of my biggest issues with the film is that it starts out by showing us what’s happening in the present and then cuts to five years earlier and then continues to do that throughout the rest of the film. Why? Why does it need to do that? It doesn’t help out the film in any way. It just makes it a mess. And the stuff that happens in the present day scenes with Michael Jackson and the unnamed kids in the boat on the river is a lot more interesting than the flashback stuff. Why couldn’t the movie just be about her and the kids trying to survive? They’re the only good actors in the movie, anyway. When I first heard about this movie, I thought that’s what the movie was gonna focus on. The stuff that happens with the other characters is really uninteresting especially since I don’t care about any of those characters. They decide to drive to a grocery store with the windows covered and trust the GPS to guide them? Anyone who thinks that’s a good idea deserves whatever happens to them!

Despite being with the kids for 5 years, Sandra Bullock doesn’t even bother giving them names. She just simply calls them “Boy” and “Girl”. It gets annoying every time she calls out for one of them. I know people will say the reason she doesn’t give them names is because she didn’t want to get emotionally attached to them, but if she didn’t get emotionally attached to them throughout the 5 years they’ve spent together, naming them wouldn’t change anything. Also, that’s not an excuse when we see her become attracted to one of the guys she has been trying to survive with. How was that any different? If you’re wondering why the movie is called Bird Box, it’s because there are these CGI birds in a cage that can sense a monster when it arrives. These birds have absolutely no impact on the movie at all. They don’t even need the birds anyway since the characters wear blindfolds whenever they’re outside. So what is the purpose? The title of the movie is based on something that doesn’t affect the movie in any kind of way! I don’t know why the birds are CGI, by the way. They just are. This movie doesn’t rely heavily on effects, but the effects in this movie are straight up awful. I literally laughed 3 times. These deaths look so fake that they are actually hilarious.

Bird Box is a overhyped an overrated mess of a film. I don’t get why this is getting such a following. I’ve been seeing so many Tweets, memes, and people even made a very stupid challenge inspired by the movie when it isn’t even that good of a movie. It is not worth watching and I wish I had been wearing a blindfold during it.

Score: 3/10

Comments

Bird box is actually one of my favorites. hey remember that scene where there is this lady banging her head on the window and then there was blood. p.s the dot that you see after the word blood is actully a question mark so I am asking. - alexanderstrider (1/20/2019)

That was one of the worst effects I’ve seen in a modern film. - MegaSoulhero (1/20/2019)