Post by UndeadNed on Nov 8, 2009 8:33:25 GMT -5
Just saw this last night with the girlfriend. It had a lot of potential and was based off a Richard Matheson story and had an interesting concept behind it "A Mutilated stranger drops off a box with a button on it to a couple. He explains that if they push the button they will receive a million dollars; however, the catch is someone somewhere will die if they do push the button."
***Spoilers to follow***
So at its heart you've got a very interesting concept and moral/ethical quandary. You've got the chance to earn a million bucks and live comfortably (its set in the 70's) for the rest of your life if you push the button, but at the expense of someone else's life. There's also another interesting dilemma posed at the end to one of the protagonists (which I won't spoil), but the concept is ruined greatly by the film makers attempt to shoe horn in a ridiculous sub-plot about Aliens or some other life form being behind the social experiment that is "The Box". Its a damn shame because when they go down that path the film loses its way and it goes from pyschological thriller to cheesy sci-fi. If I didn't know any better I'd say the film studio had two movie scripts one based off a Richard Matheson horror story and one about Aliens infiltrating society and conducting social experiments on us. It appears the latter was too cheesy on its own and the former didn't have enough material to last two hours, so they figured they'd combine the two and go for gold.
Big mistake! So instead of getting a nice tout psychological thriller about the moral implications of being responsible for the death of a stranger for personal gain you get a film focusing more on an alien species possessing humans trying to explain the origins of the box. It was completely unnecessary and pointless since that story doesn't really go anywhere. There's also some terrible CGI effects involving water. Despite the advancements in CGI they still can't seem to nail anti-gravity water looking anything other then ridiculous.
Seriously this movie could've been a memorable horror flick for 2009 if they had just cut out all the alien bullshit and stuck with the moral & ethical implications of the button experiment, and the mutilated stranger. Wait for it on DVD.
***Spoilers to follow***
So at its heart you've got a very interesting concept and moral/ethical quandary. You've got the chance to earn a million bucks and live comfortably (its set in the 70's) for the rest of your life if you push the button, but at the expense of someone else's life. There's also another interesting dilemma posed at the end to one of the protagonists (which I won't spoil), but the concept is ruined greatly by the film makers attempt to shoe horn in a ridiculous sub-plot about Aliens or some other life form being behind the social experiment that is "The Box". Its a damn shame because when they go down that path the film loses its way and it goes from pyschological thriller to cheesy sci-fi. If I didn't know any better I'd say the film studio had two movie scripts one based off a Richard Matheson horror story and one about Aliens infiltrating society and conducting social experiments on us. It appears the latter was too cheesy on its own and the former didn't have enough material to last two hours, so they figured they'd combine the two and go for gold.
Big mistake! So instead of getting a nice tout psychological thriller about the moral implications of being responsible for the death of a stranger for personal gain you get a film focusing more on an alien species possessing humans trying to explain the origins of the box. It was completely unnecessary and pointless since that story doesn't really go anywhere. There's also some terrible CGI effects involving water. Despite the advancements in CGI they still can't seem to nail anti-gravity water looking anything other then ridiculous.
Seriously this movie could've been a memorable horror flick for 2009 if they had just cut out all the alien bullshit and stuck with the moral & ethical implications of the button experiment, and the mutilated stranger. Wait for it on DVD.
