Bird Brained

Rating: 5/10 (4 January 2019)

Like the rest of the world, I too watched Netflix's film "Bird Box" over the festive period. Whilst I'd say it's unarguably the best of the prestige 2018 releases that I saw, given the state of some of the others, that's a little like damning with faint praise.
Sandra Bullock is the star, playing Malorie, who's in her later stages of pregnancy when the world's population is enveloped by a mysterious compulsion to take their own lives. By luck she makes it to a suburban house where it becomes apparent that the suicides are caused by a mysterious entity and if you see them, the compulsion will overtake you immediately. Thrown together, the makeshift team must find a way to survive, including finding food, all without using their most useful sense.
So what works? Sandra Bullock does, her commitment to the physical nature of the role is admirable, as is her willingness to play a reluctance towards motherhood, even before the situation unfolds. I love Sarah Poulson. She too is great in what is essentially an extended cameo in this. The premise is an interesting idea and much of the early execution is good. There's some excellent horrific imagery in those early scenes too, as rakes of people off themselves as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, then the film breaks down a bit. I've not read the source novel, but not knowing it was a book previously, I felt like the film was a premise without much of a clue what to do with it. The films flashes back from Malorie's perilous blindfolded trip down the river to her time in the house immediately following the outbreak. All of that is fairly standard Zombie movie stuff, barricading the door, deciding whether to let outsiders in, and internal mistrust. Eventually they have to make a run to get more supplies, and here's where the logic starts to breakdown. Rather than the simple act of wearing a blindfold and breaking into next door, they decide to paint the windows of a car and drive to the supermarket, they complete the journey, using the Sat Nav to guide them. They manage to get there and get in, load up their shopping carts and I'm thinking, well that was the easy bit, finding the car, loading it and getting back to the house again are the real interesting bits, but the film just cuts to them back at the house. The river trip is another logical issue. The whole trip takes about a day but one point, near the end, they understand that they have to navigate some rapids - which will need someone to look. They eventually decide to risk doing it blind..... but THEY DON'T HAVE TO STAY IN THE BOAT. Get out of the boat and walk the 10 minutes, keeping close to the river and they'll accomplish the same thing in a much safer way.
I do think it's good when a movie leaves things to the imagination - and I'm OK with the fact that you never see the reason for the suicides properly, in fact the actual reasons are only ever speculated at, but the films lack of logic, dull last twenty minutes and middling supporting performances blindfold this one from the start.