Excellent Acting, But Poor Visualisation (pun intended)

Rating: 5/10 (30 January 2019)

(This is a long review but it's spoiler free. First, I discuss what I disliked about the movie, then what I liked about it. TL;DR at the bottom.)
Humanity is on the brink of extinction after strange creatures spread over the earth. Anyone who sees these creatures commits suicide afterwards. In the midst of this chaos (or silence) one mother undertakes a dangerous journey to keep herself and her children safe.
I'll just start by saying that I don't think Bird Box is a bad movie, but it wasn't great either. It played some overused tropes, but what especially bugs me about this movie is how poorly it adapted the book, and even left out things that I thought made the book so great. In the book, there is constant tension between the survivors, which only increases as the days go on and food starts running out. Aside from a few arguments and a fight, this tension isn't portrayed convincingly in the film. In the book, you never truly get to know what the creatures look like, because never knowing what the creatures look like adds to the survivors' and the readers' fear of the unknown. Yet in the movie we get to know what they look like through drawings depicting extremely clichéd monsters.
In outside scenes, the creatures' arrival is always announced through blowing wind with leaves, which I felt was an awkward way of 'depicting' them. Yet the director can't be blamed for this. A movie is a visual medium; making a movie about something that can't be visualised is by itself tricky.
What I loved about the movie were its atmosphere and its acting. It takes a lot for me to get scared by a movie, but there were scenes that literally had me at the edge of my seat. The acting was absolutely superb; especially Sandra Bullock (playing Malorie, the main character) managed to get the part of a scared and lonely survivor just right. The chemistry Malorie has with some of the other characters (such as with Olympia) is surprisingly touching, especially with her children Boy and Girl.
TL;DR: Despite excellent acting and surprisingly scary and touching scenes, this movie is clichéd and lacks depth. All in all it's a bit of a poor movie adaptation of a better book.