A sadly missed opportunity.

Rating: 5/10 (14 January 2019)

Bird Box appears at first glance to be an attempt to cash in on the success of A Quiet Place, however the timing does not support this idea. Neither does the existence of the original source material that this movie was based on. A Quiet Place, however, is a significantly better film unfortunately.
I think the biggest issue with this film is that it destroys any sense of tension right off the bat with it's present day/5 years ago flashback method. The moment any other characters show up on screen you already know that they die because you've already seen the future, leaving the viewer in a state where none of the characters matter, even if they are well acted. Everything else being equal, if they had simply told the story in chronological order, I might have given this 6 and a half or even 7 stars. Unfortunately, the film ruins any suspense or surprise it could have had.
The acting is solid to good. Personally I'm a fan of Bullock and I feel she pulled of the character well, even if it was a generally unlikable character. Malkovich turns in a pretty standard Malkovich job, playing the typical insufferable genius trope character. Still a trope, even if they hang a lampshade on it.
Trevante Rhodes puts in a good performance. It's just unfortunate that the character is pretty flat and meets a completely predictable end. I would have liked seeing more of the character interaction between Tom and Malorie. They could have easily removed the silly "totally not intelligent zombies" and just focused on actually showing us the relationship growing between these two a little more.
Danielle Macdonald did a good job of playing the sacrificial lion. I really liked her character. She came across as genuine, even if she really only existed to die and provide Malorie with the tools to grow.
By contrast, Sarah Paulson serves as the sacrificial lamb, and seems to turn in about as in depth job as one would expect from someone who knows their character is gone and forgotten by page 10. She's not bad, but she's not good. She's pretty much just there until she dies.
The last of the characters who are more than just set dressing, we have Tom Hollander playing the obviously evil wolf in sheep's clothing. I don't have a problem with his job on this character, so much as the existence of the character at all in this form. Maybe it's a result of the aforementioned dead giveaway that everyone dies, but this character's actions are so blatantly obvious that I just sat there waiting for it to happen, surprised they managed enough restraint to not just do it i the next scene.
I think this really pinpoints the second major reason why I am rating this film so low. The script is just so obvious and trope-filled. Nothing about it is unpredictable, and that just makes it boring. It's one thing to follow a formula when making a movie, but this just comes across as lazy and uncreative. I don't know, maybe the book is just a bad? I had never heard of it prior to the movie, so I can't say.
The characters are all pretty flat and one dimensional, none of them particularly memorable outside of the performance quality of the actors. There is honestly zero earned character growth, with Malorie basically being a terrible mother from start to 30 seconds before finish, when she suddenly turns into a warm and caring person for some reason. Maybe the book goes into more detail about WHY she is so detached and cold toward the children, and at a logical level I can completely understand the intention behind the character, but the character we get in the movie never comes off as deep enough for it to hold water. She flips a switch at the end of the film with no development or growth of the character prior. It's just... POOF, literally 30 seconds before fade to black.
The camera work was good, if fairly standard fare. I can't really knock a film for having standardly executed camera work. It doesn't make the film any more memorable, but it also doesn't detract from the film. It seems to have been done by a pro... and nothing more.
The big evil feels a little.... convenient as well. It is presented as some deep mysterious force, then suddenly it affects some people differently and turns them into smart blindfold zombies (or religious zealots, you choose). Then later we are shown that not only are these people affected similarly, but they can apparently turn off the freaky eye job in order to infiltrate the resistance. It all just feels contrived, especially when at the end they check the eyes to make sure Malorie and the kids are safe. We are also shown at the end that this mysterious force can cause physical damage to things in the world, as they knock over trees chasing after Malorie. This really causes one to wonder why it doesn't just come through the door, or easily breakable glass windows instead of playing this long con with crazy people smart blindfold zombies?
Lastly, I feel like I have to point out the completely flat ending that not only does nothing to resolve or even hint as resolution of the baseline threat in the film, but a huge continuity error actively interfered with the ending in a way that made me THINK it was going somewhere actually interesting, rather than just the sappy saccharine happy ending we got.
That moment was after Malorie falls down the hill on their way to the commune at the end. When she crawls back out she finds the bicycle bell that Girl had on the ground and picks it up. She then proceeds to call out for the children until she hears the bicycle bell being rung by Boy. Immediately I thought "where did he get the bell from? she JUST picked it up seconds ago?". I then started to wonder if maybe they were going to work in a twist where this is all in her head, she opened her eyes after falling, and they are giving us a peak at what people see right before they suicide or go crazy pants. For the first time in the film I felt like it could be something interesting. And then we got to the school for the blind and everything is happily ever after.
It's not a terrible film. It is, overall well made, with the technical parts of film making done adequately. But it is a lackluster, poorly written and ultimately forgettable film that fails to live up to the slightest level of tension that it purports to deliver.
(seriously, I mean, a school for the blind, in the middle of the woods, only accessible via the river? And how "poetic" that it's a school for the Blind. In a world where seeing gets you killed! HA! it's deep and meaningful!)