Nearly a classic

Rating: 7/10 (2 January 2019)

Ever since 'Demolition Man' I've been a fan of Sandra Bullock (I'm ashamed to say). I actually think she's a far more versatile actress than many give her credit for. She's been in many different movie genres over the years, but - to my knowledge - she hasn't done too much in the way of 'horror' (or at least memorable horror films! I seem to recall that 'Premonition' didn't do that well). So, when I saw her in a new horror movie on Netflix that I could watch from the comfort of my own home that was picking up a lot of praise from audiences, I definitely thought I'd give it a go. Overall, when the credits finally rolled, my initial thought was, 'That was pretty good.' I only had one major problem with the film throughout its runtime (I'll get to that later). It's now been a few days since I watched 'Bird Box' and, the more I've thought about the film, the more additional flaws I seem to keep coming up with.
Sandra Bullock plays 'Malorie' - a woman who's heavily pregnant when something very strange/bad happens to the world. Basically, everyone starts committing suicide in very gruesome ways. I've seen this film compared to a couple others, but no one seems to mention the similarity in premise to 'The Happening' (perhaps because many are still trying to forget that film?). Anyway, she seeks shelter in a large house with a group of random people and there, they try to wait out, or at least survive whatever is causing this.
The only gripe I came up with while watching this film was that the 'time period' isn't just the goings on at the house with the group. It's split with a segment four years later where Malorie is trying to get two children down a river and the story keeps flicking back and forth between the two time periods. The reason I didn't really go for this method of story-telling was for the same reason I don't like most prequels, i.e. you know what's coming. Because she's on her own (besides the kids), we basically know that no one in the house is going to make it this far for whatever reason and so it removes all tension as I found myself just waiting for other characters to die.
You may see a lot of the marketing behind 'Bird Box' depicting people wearing blindfolds. Hopefully it's not too much of a 'spoiler' to say that the story revolves around the fact that if you look at the monster then you'll kill yourself. What monster you say? Yeah, well, there's a monster - apparently. I read another critic's review online after watching the film and I'm going to blatantly steal their phrase when I say that 'Bird Box' is a monster film without a monster. If you've seen any of the 'Evil Dead' films then you'll know there's that thing that flies through the woods and chases Bruce Campbell. You never see it right? But you see a hell of a lot of other nasties along the way. Here, you just have the thing you never see. It rustles bushes, moves trees and if it gets you... er, well, I'm not sure. Apparently, if you close your eyes you'll be okay. Apart from the times when characters just don't and aren't. In short, there seemed to be a few discrepancies about how the 'world' worked and the rules people had to follow for survival.
Bird Box' clocks in at around two hours and about an hour and a half of the film is set in the house, compared to the final half hour showing how Malorie got to the river and why. Personally, I preferred the stuff in the house. Yes, I had a fair idea regarding what was going to happen to everyone else around her, but I felt there was more conflict within the humans than there was with whatever this thing was that we couldn't see or understand. In specific John Malkovich is about the most famous 'housemate' to share the screen with Sandra Bullock in the house and he's definitely the best to watch. Yes, he's a bit of an idiot, but he's an entertaining idiot and that's what we want to see in our films! The rest of the group seem to have been hand-picked to be as 'diverse' as possible, meaning all races and s3xualities are accounted for and, of course, portrayed favourable - besides John Malkovich and later Tom Hollander - go figure.
I also mentioned that other people have compared it to other films, namely the (really awesome!) 'A Quiet Place.' Yes, I can see there's similar themes here and there and I read somewhere that 'Bird Box' is based on a book that was written well before 'A Quiet Place,' meaning that it couldn't possibly have lifted anything from John Krasinski's surprise hit. Perhaps if 'Bird Box' had have been released first then it would have been considered the better of the two, but, despite my enjoyment of Bullock's performance, if you asked me which one was better, I'd pick 'A Quiet Place' every time.
Overall, weighing up the pros and cons of the film, I can see that it's definitely up there with some of the best Netflix has come up with. However, it does feel sometimes like a little bit tighter writing and shuffling the order of the scenes could have made it into a film that explained a little more about what was going on and didn't leave so much up in the air, or the situations generally to chance as to whether the rules of the phenomenon actually applied at that time or not. If you have Netflix and like horror, give it a watch. It's like the 'Quiet Place' of online streaming services.