THE CRITIC-AL LIST
Reviews by Alan Jones
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

Season Of The Witch
Amer
Tron: Legacy
Machete
Let Me In
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Salt
The Expendables
The Last Airbender
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
Inception
Predators
The Twilight Saga:Eclipse
Toy Story 3
Hot Tub Time Machine
Iron Man 2
Repo Men
The Collector
Clash of the Titans
Shelter
How To Train Your Dragon
Kick-Ass
Shutter Island
Alice In Wonderland
The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
Star Trek
Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The Rise OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by Richard Kelly. Starring James Marsden, Cameron Diaz, Gillian Jacobs, Frank Langella. Thriller, USA, 116 minutes.

It’s two strikes and out for Richard Kelly. Hard to see how the once promising cult director can possibly rise again after teetering on the brink twice with the travesty that was SOUTHLAND TALES and now the misstep that is THE BOX.

Only Kelly could take suspense maestro Richard Matheson's simple and effective short story ‘Button, Button’, already adapted for a mid 80s ‘Twilight Zone’ TV episode, and DONNIE DARKO it up the wazoo with all manner of arcane plot twists, metaphorical layers and ludicrous pretensions. Had he just focused on the central moral dilemma faced by married couple James Marsden and Cameron Diaz - if you could get rich by pushing a button causing a total stranger's death, would you? – THE BOX might have been an eerily effective fable on greed versus altruism. But no, Kelly relentlessly keeps thinking outside THE BOX, so once disfigured emissary of evil Frank Langella has made good on his mysterious promise to deliver $1 million to the stilted twosome for taking advantage of his offer, off it goes into oddball tangents and weird Byzantine story elements as it wanders incoherently towards a SOPHIE’S CHOICE finale. The result is the entire cosmic joke collapses under the weight of Kelly’s Big Ideas taking in surrealism, spirituality, existentialism, conspiracy theories and otherworldly interference. While DONNIE DARKO’s enigmas were engaging and intriguing, THE BOX’s secrets are remote and convoluted. Perhaps it was supposed to be a send-up of DONNIE DARKO because Kelly strives for meaning that isn’t there as Jean-Paul Sartre references clash with nose-bleeding zombies, watery after-lifes meld with Mars landings and NASA workforces brim with ‘Law and Order’ crimes. The 1976 suburbia setting is an odd distraction too even though the wallpaper designs often have the habit of stealing the entire picture. While it’s fun to see the NASA labs with their old fashioned equipment, the men in sideburns and Diaz in her maxi-coat, it feels a bit pointless even when you realize its party based on autobiographical details from Kelly’s own childhood. I suppose there’s also the fact that life back then wasn’t geared around our current ‘push-button’ mania for instant gratification. Any movie that features Scott Walker’s ‘When Joanna Loved Me’ on the soundtrack can’t be all bad, but THE BOX unfortunately becomes more trying and tiresome as it piles on the puzzles and stretches them out over nearly two hours.

The main problem is easy to ascertain; Kelly’s ambitious reach exceeds his basic grasp and his artistic and imaginative fearlessness feels stale and shallow. It certainly isn’t as bad as SOUTHLAND TALES but it’s a total mess, even if a stylish looking one.

Alan Jones

© London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2009
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