Day Old Bird Box Buffet

Rating: 3/10 (5 May 2019)

Oh my god, a tornado of excrement. Worse.
Starts off okay, has some promise. Pregnant Sandra Bullock sees TV people going crazy in Russia and shrugs it off. Can't happen here, she says. Maybe we're too stable, too grounded in reality.
Starts to fall down. Between one Starbucks run and another, suddenly everyone's infected. Nobody explains what / why / how / where or anything. Woman bangs her head bloody against the glass. Man falls on a spike. Wife calmly climbs in a burning car. Kid bangs himself dead over the head with a skateboard. Serious.
You just cannot look at these creatures without wanting to off yourself. But don't ask what creatures? Nobody has a whiff. Neither the writers, the director, or the cast. Take our word for it, they say. It's no good. We got some shadows and spookyish music to get you in the mood, but after that we just don't have a clue.
Still Sandra Bullock strong. Tough, more than macho. Fortunately all powerful malevolent creatures can't pass doors or news-papered windows. Otherwise, we wouldn't have a story; everyone would drink bleach in the first 15 minutes.
Hunkered. Behind the Sacramento doors that evil shall not pass. But food is getting low. And another pregnant woman knocks on the door. Please let me in she says. I've got a little bitty girl in my belly.
John Malkovich. No, no, no, he says. I'm just the merciless neighbor, but I protest. I have no rationale, but someone's got to be the bad guy.
Overruled. Pregnant woman # 2 enters and forces pregnant woman # 1 Sandra Bullock to promise to take care of her baby if something happens. Spoiler: it does.
Meanwhile, gay guy house / shelter owner has a brilliant idea. I'll look at the surveillance cameras stationed around the house like dependent soldiers, Creatures can't hurt me. Digitized signals. Just show the color temperatures of the objects.
Dangerous! Dangerous! everyone shouts, most stridently John Malkovich, but once gay guy house / shelter owner says "it's only pixels", everyone shambles on downstairs with a shrug to see if there's maybe a chance of nookie in the kitchen.
Falls down completely. 100%. The absolute absurd. Bust me with a granite crutch. Just moments after gay guy house / shelter owner declares that his system only shows the color temperatures of the outside objects, there he is, strapped into his desk chair for safety, watching regular black and white surveillance video like you'd see in any 7-11.
Naturally, he succumbs, and from there Bird Box just gets more ridiculous. Never mind consistency. Never mind believability that these unexplained malevolent creatures cause those who gaze upon them to instantly kill themselves except those who don't and instead drive around in gray Nissan sedans screeching tires in the middle of the forest. Never mind the ending. Bird Box suffers from a predictable Hollywood disease. It delivers what could be an interesting story with the assumption that the audience is only comprised of simpletons.